


Unknown Soldier

by VeronicaFerCard



Series: Aftermaths of War [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Established Relationship, Guardians of the Galaxy cameo, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Steve Needs a Hug, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-27
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-02 14:57:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8671849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeronicaFerCard/pseuds/VeronicaFerCard
Summary: Steve and Buck’s retirement was, at least, longer than Clint’s. But then…Fury went missing.And so did half of the powerful gems known as Infinity Stones.Little did they know those wouldn’t be the only things to vanish from their Universe.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has a playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1tz85Mdn3rIobo1TJDi8brkq_Qlr8oo2
> 
> EDIT: This was previously Anonymous Soldier", but I've wanted to change that name pretty much since the day I posted this. I kept thinking it'd be weird to change the name after I'd posted, but I no longer care about that, it's been two years, and this name makes much more sense. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

He finished his fifth round around the perimeter with a long suffering sigh, deeming he wouldn't get safer than this, and called it a day.

Bucky poured himself a cup of lukewarm brown liquid he had to use a lot of imagination to call coffee, drinking it methodically as he checked in for any news.  

Nothing.

Again.

Stark was a bit of a dick when he wanted to be, but Bucky was sure he wouldn’t withhold information like that if he had anything to report. It was more likely that they were too far from Bucky’s station to send anything.

He sighed again, pushing his half drank cup away from himself, and combed the fingers of his right hand through his greasy locks. He needed a haircut. And a hot bath. He had a long list of needs, actually.

Number one? You guessed.

Steve.

It had been three months since Bucky had last seen him. By this point, he was beyond restless. The fact that he was alone didn't help his case either. The radio silence was slowly killing Bucky at each passing day.

Solitude was making his mind run with the worst of the worst case scenarios. And adding to that the fact he didn’t have much to do…

He just wanted to hear Steve's voice, goddamn it!

And to think that last than a year ago they had started to discuss adopting.

"A dog," Steve had said.

"Cat," Bucky had countered.

Neither of them mentioned, but they both felt too messed up to raise an actual human child. Plus, the animal would even be therapeutic, according to Sam.

Now Bucky was in the ass end of nowhere, cold, miserable and Steveless, just like _before_.

He glanced at the clock at the bottom of the computer screen in front of him. He should probably try to get some shuteye.

Heaving himself from the chair Bucky marched to one of the sad excuses of a bed at the end of the cabin, only bothering enough to remove his boots before laying on his back, his head resting on his hands as he watched the ceiling.

Bucky sighed for a third time.

The moon was a bitch of a place to live in.

-

**Months before**

Bucky was still asleep when Steve got back from his running. He actually had no idea what time Bucky had gone to bed the night before. All he knew was that, by the time Steve had kissed him goodnight, Bucky was still neck deep in half a dozen textbooks spread over the couch and coffee table.

 If Steve were to be honest, he had to admit he didn’t exactly keep up with Bucky’s school progress. It wasn’t lack of interest, far from it, Steve loved to hear about Bucky’s college experience, and he loved how Bucky’s eyes would sparkle with excitement when he talked about it. Steve just honest to god did not understand the first thing about it.

One thing Steve did know was Bucky’s schedule, though. He knew Bucky only had class in the afternoon today so he let him sleep, making sure to be quite as he picked up some clothes and headed to the bathroom to take a shower. He had just finished preparing breakfast when the doorbell rang.

Steve frowned at the door, he wasn’t expecting anyone. He contemplated ignoring it. It wasn’t in his nature to do so, but he really wasn’t in the mood to deal with whoever it was as they realized they had just knocked on an ex Avenger’s door to sell cookies or something. Bucky and Steve had managed to keep a low profile the past two years they had been living here. The neighbors knew who they were but the novelty had worn off halfway through the first year. So this was either an emergency or someone not from around here.

Steve proved himself right on both accounts once he opened the door.

“Sam?” Steve hadn’t seen Sam – or any of his friends for that matter – in quite some time. Last he heard they were deep in some mission. Steve hadn’t exactly been honest with Bucky regarding the Avengers. He had been keeping an eye on things, not closely, but he was always aware when the group had a mission.

He didn’t know they were back.

“Can I come in?” Sam broke through his train of thoughts and Steve mentally shook himself out of it.

“Sure, sorry,” he apologized as he stepped back to let Sam in. Steve used the moment to study him. Sam didn’t seem to be hurt anywhere Steve could see, but the look on his face told Steve not to keep his hopes up that this was a mere social call.

They sat down on the sofa next to each other, and Steve was just about to offer something to eat or drink when Sam spoke. “I’m gonna skip the part where you pretend not to know why I’m here.”

Steve smiled sheepishly. “I really don’t.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Fine,” he conceded. “You know we’re on a mission.” Steve nodded. “We found something, that’s why I’m here.” Sam shifted on his seat, he looked uncomfortable, almost pained to be there. Sam had never been this guarded around Steve, not even when they were virtually strangers. Something was wrong. Sam hesitated and dread started to creep up Steve’s back. "Steve, this is big."

"I know," Steve said, squeezing his eyes shut as he began to put the pieces together.

Sam continued, " We're gonna need—"

"I know," Steve repeated, interrupting Sam. He didn't mean to be rude; he just didn’t want to hear it. It had taken Steve a long time to work on his issues; it was still a working in progress. He still met with his psychologist monthly, but he was getting better. He no longer felt the need to immediately jump into action when the Avengers were assembled. He was slowly learning he didn’t actually have to punch all his problems in the face.

He was happy with his progress. And one of the best outcomes of it was to see how proud Bucky was of him. How proud Steve _himself_ was for the both of them. They had just begun to find their footing. And now—

“What’s going on?” Steve turned his neck to see Bucky standing behind them, still barefoot though he had a least put on a tank top and a pair of sweats. Bucky walked over to the armchair beside the sofa and sat down facing Sam and Steve. “What happened?” He asked Sam.

“I was just getting to that,” Sam said, glancing between the two of them until his eyes settled back on Steve. “We’re gonna need you.” He cast an apologetic look on Bucky. “Both of you.”

Steve gulped. Bucky shook his head and got up. “I need coffee,” he announced as he headed to the kitchen. He came back with a tray and cups for the three of them. Sam and Steve thanked him and they all spent the next five minutes in tense silence as they drank.

Once Bucky put his empty mug back on the tray Steve began to mentally count the seconds for the bomb to drop. He was on six when –

“What happens if we say no?”

“I –” Sam started, but Steve interrupted him before the bickering session with Bucky could begin.

“The UN wants me to do this?” Whatever _this_ was. They had yet to get into that.

Sam visibly cringed. “Not _exactly_.”

“So, I’ll be acting outside the law.”

That made Sam snort loudly. “It’s not like that has stopped you before,” he pointed, looking at Bucky as he did.

Fair point. Steve dropped the act and went back to business. “What’s the mission?”

Bucky raised his metal hand in a stopping gesture toward Steve, though his eyes were on Sam. “Hold your horses, Rogers! The Accords didn’t summon us, we have no obligation –”

“Are you kidding me?” Steve retorted. “We didn’t even hear him! This could be about the whole--”

“Nick Fury is missing,” Sam raised his voice above theirs. They stop mid-rant to look at him. “He was investigating the Stones. Whoever killed Vision was starting a collection of Infinity Stones.” Steve remembered that. It was the first mission the Avengers had gone without him.

“When do we leave?” Bucky’s complete change of mind was so sudden it almost gave Steve mental whiplash. He must have looked confused enough for Bucky to explain it to him. “Anyone who has the whole set will be basically a god.” Steve raised an eyebrow at him. “I’ve been studying about it? You know how sometimes Stark helps me with school… we got to talking.”

Steve scoffed. “And you give _me_ shit for trying to keep up with what they’re doing,” he accused.

“That’s different!”

“How?”

“Cos I don’t wanna follow ‘em around!”

Sam raised his hands at them. “Hey, hey!” They both turned their matching glares at him. “Is this little show just for me or are you like that all the time?”

Steve felt his cheeks burn with embarrassment. He averted his eyes to the floor as he mumbled an apology. Then he looked up at Bucky and did the same. “Sorry.”

“‘S alright,” Bucky shrugged. “I’m sorry too, Stevie. I didn’t mean to snap.”

“Okay, okay,” Sam acknowledged them again. “Now let me explain to you what we’re up against. And then,” he paused looking between the two before his eyes settle on Steve. The guilt on his face wasn’t easy to overlook. Out of all their friend Sam was the one who understood the most how much Steve and Bucky needed an out. He had been the first to see that Steve wasn’t alright. Steve understood his reluctance. And that was why Sam’s next words didn’t come as a surprise. “If you don’t wanna come with us we’ll understand.”

The meaning behind his words wasn’t lost to Bucky either. “You don’t think we have a chance.” It wasn’t even a question. Sam nodded.

“Tell us,” Steve said. He shared a quick look with Bucky. If the situation was as dire as it seemed to be if death was pretty much the guaranteed outcome for everyone… Well, then there really wasn’t anything to be discussed. “What are we up against?”

-

Nick Fury left a message before vanishing from the face of the – well, not Earth – wherever he was. It was short and simple. There were six gems called Infinity Stone – Bucky knew that much already – they were all scattered around the Universe. Four of them had shown up in the last hundred years. Out of these four, three of them had been recently stolen.

The Space Stone, the one Hydra had used to make weapons. The Reality Stone, the thing that had entered Thor’s girl some years back. Both of them were in Asgard. Thor had actually reported their disappearance before Nick. Then the Mind Stone that was with Vision. The only one that was still safe was the Power Stone, which was being guarded by a military force called Nova Corps on another planet.

Nobody seemed to know the whereabouts of the other two. If anyone managed to put together all of them they’d be the most powerful creature to ever live. No one should hold that much power, that much was clear.

Fury was supposed to go to the Nova Corps to make sure their Stone was secured. He never showed up. The Avengers were going after him. Well, some of them were. The others would go after the stones.

“And one of us has to take Nick’s place,” Natasha explained. They were all gathered in the living room of the Avengers headquarters.

“Doing what exactly?” T’challa asked.

“Guarding the Earth,” She answered with a completely straight face that told Bucky she wasn’t pulling one on them. He wanted to snort though. This whole thing was looking more and more like some of the pulps he used to read. Only this shit wasn’t funny anymore, now that it was real.

“Explain,” T’challa demanded with an arched eyebrow. Bucky couldn’t read him very well, but if he had to guess he would say the king was trying to decide if Romanoff was being serious or not.

“After New York,” she didn’t need to be specific, they all knew what she meant, “Nick started to make a bunch of contingency plans to protect the Earth. Obviously, some of his ideas weren’t so fortunate.” She shared a look with Steve and Sam. If she was talking about Insight –and of course she was – then that was a huge understatement. “But he finally found a way to keep his eye on things.”

“Yeah? And what way is that?” Steve inquired, making sure his annoyance bleed out on his tone. Fury’s last attempt had been bittersweet, to say the least. It brought Steve and Bucky back together but also almost caused them to kill each other. Bucky couldn’t fault Steve for being defensive.

Natasha cocked her head to the side, giving a one-sided shrug. “He has a base on the moon where he spies on people from hacked satellites.”

“The moon?” Bucky couldn’t help it. The whole thing was just absurd. He knew he was in a world where extraordinary things were actually pretty ordinary, his own existence being proof of that, but some stuff was just _too much_. “Why?”

“It’s romantic,” Romanoff deadpanned.

“Okay,” Stark sighed. “Whatever Mr. Mystery’s reasons are, the thing is he’s gone. The Stones are gone. We need to find them before something really bad, really happens.”

“And someone has to take Nick’s place as a watcher,” Natasha reminded.

“And that.”  Tony pointed at her. “Any volunteer?” He raised an eyebrow at Barton. “Katniss?”

“Nah, man,” Barton waved at him. “We gotta do this democratically. Short straw.”

Steve shook his head. “You’re suggesting one of us stays on the moon by themselves. That’s not –”

“Relax, Steve. Nick’s place is safe. It’s the safest place out there. I’ve checked,” Natasha said. “So, we’re short-strawing it?”

“We’re short-strawing it,” Sam agreed.

The rest of them, Bucky included, limited to nodding. And then Bruce, because he was the least likely to cheat, prepared the sticks.

Bucky was torn. Part of him wanted Steve to draw the short stick and be as far away from any fight as possible. If Romanoff said Fury’s place was secure then he believed her. The people in this room were the ones she cared the most in the whole world. She wouldn’t make empty promises to them. On the other hand, though, the idea of being so far from Steve caused Bucky’s stomach to tighten itself in knots. He didn’t know what was worse.

In a count of three, they all drew the straws from Banner’s fist.

Bucky looked at Steve’s hand before opening his own. There was an entire chopstick on Steve’s palm. Steve looked at it and then turned his expectant glance toward Bucky. He shrugged, showing his result.

Bucky opened his palm.

His first thought was that he would have felt the broken edge if he had drawn with his right hand. His second thought was _shit._ His third thought told him not to look at Steve, but it came too late and his eyes were already locked on the desolate face of his husband.

They would have to be apart again.

-

A Stark car drove the home. They spent the short journey immersed in heavy silence; neither of them ready to acknowledge the huge elephant in the room. Not that Steve hadn’t tried, he did.

“I’ll stay with him,” he had argued once the rest of the Avengers had realized Bucky was the one with the short stick. “Think about it,” he said looking at them one at a time. He was beginning to feel desperate; one of them had to agree with him. “It’s crazy to leave someone alone on the _moon_.”

“Steve,” Bucky had tried to interject. Steve shook his head, not wanting to hear whatever self-sacrificing shit Bucky was about to sputter.

“This is insane!”

“We agreed to this, Steve,” Natasha had chimed in. They had all been sitting around the same table where they had first heard about the Accords. She’d put her hand on his, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “We’re not sure what we’re up against here. James will be the safest, but the rest of us needs to be together for this.”

Try as he might Steve couldn’t find a fault in her logic. Bucky would be safer than any of them. Bucky wouldn’t have to fight. That was what he had wanted the most. Steve couldn’t deny him that, not when Bucky was putting the life he had built for himself on hold yet again.

Steve couldn’t run from the fight either. All in all, he would at least fight better knowing Bucky was far from it, and harder so that he could go back to him. He would make this work, they all would.

They only broke the silence to thank Tony’s driver when the car stopped in front of their house. Once inside Steve closed the door behind them and leaned against it, letting his head hit the wood with a thud.

“Guess retirement doesn’t suit us, uh,” he tried to joke but it fell flat.

Bucky had his back to Steve when he spoke, “Are you happy with this?” Steve studied him; his shoulders were drawn up, his spine straight, his muscles tense. “Is this what you wanted, Steve?” Bucky finally turned to face him. “Were you – have you been waiting for something like this?”

“What? No, Buck!” Steve stepped away from the door. “I would never want anything that would set us apart.” Bucky’s shoulders dropped when Steve approached him. He bit his bottom lip glancing nervously at Steve through his lashes. “I’d never wish for anything like that.”

“Stevie, I don’t want this,” Bucky confessed, taking one of Steve’s hand in his metal one. “I don’t wanna lose _you_.”

 _You won’t_ , Steve wanted to promise, but he couldn’t voice the thought for some reason, so instead of saying anything he leaned forward and captured Bucky’s lips with his own. He planted a small kiss on the side of Bucky’s mouth, asking for an invitation which Bucky soon obliged to.

It was somehow silently decided, in between small kisses, that the discussion would go on intermission for the time being. For now, Steve’s undivided attention was drawn into mapping every single part of Bucky’s body with both his hands and mouth.

He guided Bucky backward until they reached their bedroom and the back of his knees hit the mattress. He fell down easily, taking Steve with him as he did.

Bucky ran his hands up and down Steve’s back and Steve did his best not to think about how this could be the last time. Bucky was leaving tomorrow; Thor would take him to Fury’s base. Steve would leave in search for Fury and the Stones with the rest of the Avengers the day after. This could be it.

 He pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind as he reciprocated Bucky’s caresses with his own.

They made love as if time was on their side, with slow kisses and gentle touches. Not much was said, they didn’t waste any words with promises that couldn’t be kept, instead reinforcing their feelings through actions. A love and devotion that was stronger than anything time threw at them. Nothing to be said that wasn’t already known, and they explored one another as if trying to imprint the moment on each other’s skins, committing to memory every second of it.

Afterwards, Steve rested within the comfort of Bucky’s arms while the latter traced lazy patterns on his arm.

Bucky planted a kiss under Steve’s ear. “Uh.” He shifted on the bed, reaching behind himself to turn on the lamp on the nightstand.

“What?” Steve asked though he made no move to change the oh so comfortable position he was in.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Bucky shaking his head. “Nothing, just – I can’t believe I haven’t noticed this in almost eighty years,” he said, touching the back of Steve’s left ear again, lightly tracing the scar there with his fingertip. It had the shape of a question mark without the dot, he had once told Steve. Bucky hadn’t been there when Steve got it by defending another small kid from some bully.

Steve had tried to retrieve the girl’s glasses from the older boy. After some time the kid got bored of Steve always coming back up and he ended up shoving the glasses so hard on Steve’s face one of the temple tips broke the skin behind Steve’s ear. He wouldn’t have even known of the scar was there hadn’t Bucky told him. Steve had never been in the habit of looking in the mirror; he certainly didn’t use to check behind his ears.

“What d’ya mean you haven’t noticed?” He finally shifted on the bed so he could properly look at Bucky’s face. “You the one who told me about it, Buck.”

“I know that, Steve. I’m saying I never realized it hadn’t gone away with the serum,” he clarified.

Steve hummed. “Well, guess nobody’s perfect,” he deadpanned. He kept the straight face for all the two seconds e took Bucky to grab one of their pillows and smack Steve’s face with it. Then Steve broke down laughing, Bucky following suit a second later. It wasn’t even that funny, but he thought they ought to find lightness in some silly things while they still could. He had a feeling they wouldn’t be laughing much in the near future.

Steve and Bucky arrived at the compound early the next day, having taken a ride with the same driver that had brought them home the day before. The Avengers were already waiting for them in the common area. Stark didn’t waste any time once he saw them.

 “Ah, great! The grandpas have arrived,” Tony exclaimed as he headed to Steve and Bucky’s direction. “Come with me, Terminator. I need to give you a crash course on how to survive in space.” Bucky snorted at the nickname but went after him all the same, as Stark completely bypassed the rest of the crew and headed to his lab. “You seen The Martian? That’s basically you,” he waved his hands, “sans the potatoes.”

Bucky had an amused expression as he and Tony disappeared through the corridor, yet Steve couldn’t overlook the tense set of his shoulders.

He studied his naked fingers. They had decided to leave the rings at home, it felt weird being without it, but Steve didn’t want to lose the thing in space. And he really didn’t want to give fuel to whatever enemy they were about to face.

“Smart call,” Natasha said. Steve looked up to see her staring at his left hand.

Steve nodded. “Feels strange to be without it,” he admitted with a lopsided grin. “It grew on me.”

“Marriage life suits you – both of you.” Steve couldn’t quite read her most of the time, but there was something akin to sadness on the way she was looking at him now.

“Thanks.”

She rubbed his upper arm in a comforting manner. “You’re welcome.”

Bruce cleared his throat and all the attention was redirected to him, which made him uncomfortable for all of the three seconds it took him to start on his explanation about their journey.

“So, Bucky will send us everything Fury has on the moon base,” he explained.

“Is that possible,” Clint voiced Steve’s own question. He didn’t understand much about how internet and data travel worked but he wasn’t all the sure the moon had working service.

“While we’re still within reach, yes,” Bruce affirmed. “That’s why we need him to go right away. The sooner he gets the information the sooner he can transmit it to us before we’re too far to be reached.” He tapped something on his tablet and a hologram appeared in the middle of the table. “This is our schedule.”

It became clear to Steve that Bucky and he had been brought in quite late in the plan. They were last resources. The team had really tried to do this without them, judging by how every step had already been carefully mapped out.

They would be traveling to four different planets, tracing the last known location of the Stones. That was, if Fury’s intel didn’t tell any different, then they would have to rethink their path. Although their starting point in Asgard was something that wouldn’t change, and they did have to leave as soon as possible.

“You’re just gonna – drive us around the galaxy?” Sam asked Thor.

“I’m the god of thunder, not Uber,” Thor snorted. Steve didn’t know what was funnier, to be honest, the comeback or the fact he knew what Uber was. “I shall, however, take the Sergeant to the moon by means of teleportation, and then summon Heimdall to transport the rest of us to Asgard. We will be using an Asgardian spacecraft to travel around the realms.” He smiled smugly. “Much faster than anything you have on Midgard.”

“It’ll be an honor,” T’challa said, and Steve couldn’t for the life of him, say if he was joking or not. T’challa and Thor were both royalty after all.

Bucky and Stark resurged from Tony’s lab about an hour and a half into the meeting. Bucky took the seat in front of Steve, acknowledging him with a nod. Steve offered him a small, private smile.

“So,” Tony drawled as he sat next to Wanda, “how are we in preparation?” He asked Bruce.

“They know they can’t take off the space suit if they want to keep breathing,” he said, looking pointedly at Clint, who just shrugged and went back to organizing the set of arrowheads he had placed on the table a few minutes into the meeting. “It’s a start,” Banner concluded with little enthusiasm.

“I couldn’t help but noticing we’re a couple of insects short,” Steve decided to point out now that they were all there. By the gravity of the situation, he had thought they would _all_ be there.

“Uh? Oh, yeah. The Spider-Kid is a no go,” Tony shrugged, “Family impasse. And Lang’s gotta a little girl and another one in the oven. We won’t actually be doing office hours here. It’s understandable.” It was. Steve nodded, his eyes drifting to Barton. Tony followed his gaze. “Clint’s getting a divorce.”

Clint’s neck snapped up to them. “No, I’m not,” he said affronted.

Tony snorted. “You are when we return.”

Not that Tony was one to talk, Steve wanted to point out, although Pepper was practically an Avenger herself. She would probably be going with them if she didn’t have a multimillion business to run.

After some more arguing and preparation, it was decided that Steve, Natasha, Sam, and Clint would follow the Stones, whereas Tony, T’challa, Bruce, and Wanda would look for Fury. Thor would be their middle man with other planets.

They went their separate ways to finish getting ready once the meeting was over. Steve followed Bucky to the room where the latter would change into the space suit he had to wear.

“Know how to use this thing?” Steve asked as he helped Bucky into the suit.

Bucky let out a nervous laugh. “I better.”

Steve glanced up at him. “Buck.”

Bucky huffed. “This is crazy, Steve,” he declared, opening his arms to encompass the whole situation they were in, and Steve opened his mouth ready to tell him he didn’t have to do it, but Bucky beat him to it. “I feel like this is bigger than anything we’ve faced so far.” He shook his head, resigned. “We can’t just turn a blind eye. This is – I can’t believe I’m saying this – this is bigger than Hydra, isn’t it?”

Steve remembered then that Bucky wasn’t around for the Chitauri. He hadn’t met Loki. “You know about New York, right?”

“Yeah,” Bucky nodded.

“The only difference is that we’re fighting them on their territory now,” he explained. “We won then. We’ll do it again,” he affirmed with a sudden burst of confidence. Steve offered Bucky a cocky smirk worthy of Stark or Natasha’s.  “We’re Earth’s Mightiest, aren’t we?”

Bucky laughed. “You have a lot of faith, Rogers.”

“On this team? You bet I do.”

They heard a knock on the door that they hadn’t bothered to close and turned to see Clint standing by the threshold. “You guys ready?” He didn’t wait for an answer before turning on his heels. “We gotta get moving,” Clint’s voice carried from the corridor.

Steve looked back at Bucky and found the latter’s eye locked on him. Steve offered him a curt nod, completely at loss of what to say. Bucky nodded back and turned to leave, but right then Steve realized what he wanted to say, so he grabbed one Bucky’s arms, urging Bucky to turn back to him; capturing his lips in a fervent kiss when he did so.

“I love you,” Steve panted against Bucky’s mouth, resting his forehead on Bucky’s.

Bucky cupped Steve’s face with his hand. “I love you too, Stevie,” he said with a smile.

Steve could have spent the rest of eternity there, just having his fill of Bucky, just looking at him. But they didn’t have the luxury of time, not right now, and much too soon Bucky’s hands were leaving him and they both left the normalcy of their lives on these past years as they marched to find the others in the garden outside the compound.

Bucky put on the helmet as he approached Thor. Besides the space suit, he was only taking a duffle bag, but Tony assured him it had everything he would need. And Nat pretty much guaranteed Fury’s base had all the essentials for a single human being to survive there for a very long time. Yet, Steve still felt uneasy watching him go.

“Are you ready, Sergeant?” Thor asked.

“As I’d ever be,” Bucky shrugged.

Natasha approached him and planted a kiss on the side of the helmet. “Take care, James.”

Bucky smiled at her. “You too.” He looked at the rest of them. “And you better take care of my man. I’ll hunt your asses if anything happens to him.”

Steve rolled his eyes. Sam snorted. But Wanda looked at him solemnly as she spoke. “I will. Promise.” Steve had yet to talk alone with her. He knew how bad she had taken to loosing Vision. This mission had a different weight for her.

“We have to leave,” Thor’s announcement cut through their laughter before the banter could begin. He held Bucky’s metal arm in on hand and swung his hammer with the other. “I hope you have a strong stomach, Sergeant,” he said. It was the last thing Steve heard before the beam of light engulfed the both of them and then everything went white for a second, and in the next, all that was left was a pattern burnt on the grass where they had just stood.

Steve didn’t even have time to mourn Bucky’s lost though, for Stark immediately turned to him. “Come on, Capsicle,” he waved. “We still gotta get you dressed.”

 It was only then that Steve noticed that he was the only one still in civilian’s clothes.

“I don’t have suit,” he reminded them as he followed the group back inside.

“Oh, no worries,” Tony shot back without looking at him. “We thought of something.” He looked back at Steve with a smirk. “Heard you look very good on SHIELD’s stealth blue.”

Natasha was suddenly by his side. “Oh, believe me,” she smiled sweetly. Steve glared at her as he blushed even before hearing what she was about to say. “It does wonders to his backside.”

Good God, he was going to space with these people.


	2. Chapter 2

“You’re no Charlie’s Angels but you’ll do.”

That was it. That was Fury’s message Bucky found on the computer when he arrived at the lunar base. Everything else was old news, which led Bucky to believe Fury knew he wouldn’t be returning anytime soon, and so he probably wiped out anything useful.

He'd rather have the Avengers running around galaxies like headless chickens than risk anyone else finding out whatever he knew. Because if Bucky was certain of something it was that Fury _always_ had intel. Nick was never without a plan, that much Bucky had learned before he even found out he hadn’t actually killed the guy. And this – having one of them out here even though there was nothing useful around – this was clearly part of the plan.

Thor didn’t stick around much after their thorough search through Fury’s files proved to be fruitless. And soon Bucky was actually really bored. He sent a long e-mail to Steve about nothing in particular, not really knowing if Steve would get it before he was in a galaxy far, far away.

Then Bucky sent another set of e-mails to his professors with a very vague excuse for his absence in the near future. They all knew who he was, so he doubted he would get shit for missing class, not when his excuse was actually being too busy saving the world. That should surely cut him some slack.

Not that Bucky was doing much saving by binge-watching shows – the moon had one hell of an internet reception – and reading on space engineering. All in all, he was pretty soon bored out of his mind.

The replies from his professors came a few days later. But, as expected, there was no word from Steve, much to Bucky’s disappointment.

And with each passing day, he became more and more restless. What the hell was he doing here? He should be out there with Steve and the others looking for the Stones. Bucky felt useless sitting around like that. He wasn’t used to the feeling, even when he didn’t have his free will he was still serving a purpose. Otherwise, he would be frozen up and even then he didn’t feel like dead weight.

It began to dawn on him around the second week of nothing to do and no news, this would be one long ass mission.

-

Three months.

It had been three months since Steve last saw Bucky. It felt like an eternity.

Steve watched as the twin suns set on the horizon and tried to remember the name of the planet they were in. The three moons were already up in the sky when he gave up the task.

He checked the time on the little screen on the outside of the wrist of his suit. Nat and Clint were five minutes behind on their ETA. Steve glanced at Sam and found him dozing on the hood of the vehicle – it looked like a Humvee – they were driving.  Steve didn’t have the heart to wake him, so he decided to wait for another few minutes to see if the other two would show up.

The last Stone had been taken from the Nova Corps Headquarters two weeks ago. Natasha had a hint. A suspicious type called The Collector. She and Clint had gone to ask some questions about three hours ago. There hadn’t been a word from them since.

Steve was starting to worry.

He didn’t have time to dwell on it though. The sudden roaring of motors reached him a few seconds before he saw the two vehicles, Nat and Clint’s Humvee look alike, followed by a much bigger, much alien like, four wheeled truck; both cars approaching them astonishingly quickly.

“Sam,” Steve called loudly on his earpiece. “Sam, we gotta move.”

“Uh, what?” Sam blinked owlishly at him for two seconds before the noise caught up to him. He looked passed Steve. “Shit!”

Steve opened the door to the driver’s seat – at least _that_ was like Earth – Sam climbing the passenger seat right after as Steve pushed the buttons to bring it to life.

“Hello, Steve,” the car spoke to him as it recognized his fingerprint. “How can I assist you?” The female voice asked. Steve was half sure Tony had built this thing.

“There’s an idea,” Sam spoke before Steve. “You could get us out of here.” Whoever was chasing Romanoff and Barton chose that exact moment to start shooting orange light beams. The first one missed Steve side of the car for a hair’s breadth. “Now!”

The car swerved to avoid yet another beam, throwing both Sam and Steve around like ragged dolls as it accelerated on its own accord.

Steve’s stomach did several backflips while he tried to get a grip on something. “So many things,” he grunted between gritted teeth, half afraid that they would crack from all the rattling. “For them to copy us – and they didn’t. Think. Of.  A seatbelt.”

The car tossed them around again as it made another turn. Luckily they were in a deserted area, so they at least didn’t have the risk of hitting anything. Steve looked back as best as he could without breaking his neck and saw that Nat’s car was heading away from them. He managed to fiddle with his helmet until he found the button to switch the frequency of his comms.

“Natasha, do you copy?” He called.

There was a moment of pure static before Romanoff’s voice came through. “I’m gonna lure them away.”

“Negative.” The last thing they needed was to get lost on a foreign planet. They had to stick together.

“Relax, Commander.” Steve had passed his shield to Sam a long time ago. He was okay with them just calling him by his name, but apparently, it wasn’t cool enough. So he was Commander now, even though it wasn’t a title officially given to him by the army. But since Steve had no intention to keep on using it once this mission was over he didn’t object to it. “We’ll meet you at the rendezvous point. Just give me some time.”

The rendezvous was where they had left the Asgardian jet they were borrowing it. And even though Steve hated to leave people behind he had to admit it would be even worse if they got their only ride blown up.

“Alright,” he relented at last. Sam, having heard their exchange, nodded at him in agreement. “Don’t be late.”

He could almost hear Natasha’s smirk through the comms. “When have I ever?”

-

Fury was nowhere to be found.

At this point, to be completely honest, Tony was beginning to accept the idea that Nick might have been dead all along and they have literally been chasing a ghost for the past months. On the bright side though, they were making friends.

He glanced at T’challa, playing chess of all things, with the sexy green alien – _you’re the alien, this is not your planet,_ his brain reminded him – who had hitched a ride with them a couple of galaxies ago. She was going to a planet whose name Tony couldn’t pronounce and offered a nice quid pro quo for the ride.

“I’ve encountered the Power Stone before,” she had told them when they inquired if she had heard about the Infinity Stones. Tony had been amazed by the fact they could communicate but she explained they weren’t the first Earthlings she had encountered.

They were currently on their way to drop Gamora off. T'challa was being his diplomatic self while Wanda and Tony watched her from afar, neither of them pretending they weren't. Bruce kept his distance from all of them and tried his best not to Hulk-out. While they had all been surprised by the fact that the Big Guy could breathe in space, Bruce certainly couldn't. And having the Hulk tear through another space suit would be counterproductive.

After winning the third consecutive round of chess – it was apparently quite popular from where she came from – Gamora declared she was done with it. She stood up to stretch herself while T’challa put the game away.

Tony had lost his interest a while ago but a quick look to the side revealed that Wanda was still studying their guest with an intense interest. Tony walked over to her and sat down by her side. It was really a blessing they didn’t have to pilot their aircraft; Tony would have probably fallen asleep if they left him alone in the cockpit.

"She's hiding something,” Wanda announce quietly without taking her eyes from Gamora, who had decided to take one of the empty seats on the other side of the aircraft.

“Any chance you know what it is?”

Wanda shook her head. “I cannot read her well.” She finally looked at Tony, her expression torn between worry and annoyance. “She knows how to protect her mind from intruders.”

Tony shift in his seat, suddenly uncomfortable. He brought one leg up to fold it underneath the other and turned so that his whole body was facing Wanda. “Okay, first: entering someone’s mind without permission is rude.” Wanda narrowed her eyes at him. “Extreme circumstances aside,” Tony relented. But the fact remained that they weren’t in immediate danger at the moment. “We’re not in danger now,” he voiced his thought.

“Not that we’re aware,” Wanda shot back.  “She could be leading us to a trap. She knows what we are looking for.”

“Are you suggesting we what, kidnap her?” Tony hissed.

“No. I’m suggesting we –”

“Interrogate me.” Both Wand and Tony jumped on their seats as they turned to see Gamora standing in front of them.

T’challa approached them with a wary expression. “What is happening?”

Tony smiled nervously from Gamora to him. “She’s about to either murder us or spill her deepest secrets,” he explained, and then looked back Gamora. "Okay, Greenie, what’s it gonna be?”

She studied each one of them with hard eyes. Tony really didn’t want to fight in such close quarters, especially since this was their only means of transport, but he was seriously seconds away from summoning a suit when Gamora finally decided to speak.

“I know who’s hoarding the Gems. His name is Thanos,” she told them, and for the first time, e she seemed unsure of herself. She hesitated a little, opening and closing her mouth twice as if considering the pros and cons of saying something else. Then, after about a minute of silence, she made up her mind. “He’s my stepfather.”

Wow, plot twist. Out of _all_ the people they could have stumbled onto – this? This was almost comic. What were the odds? Tony’s brain began to run ahead of him. They could trade her for the stone. But no. She had trusted them; they couldn’t just stab her on the back like that. They could ask her what his plans were, they could –

"Are you going to tell him about us?" T'challa asked, cutting through Tony’s inner monologue.

Gamora snorted. "Rest assured. I bear no sentiment Thanos."

"Thought you said you were family,” Tony said.

"He _slaughtered_ my family. I despise him. I would see him destroyed by any hands before raising so much as a finger on his aid.”

“Nice fella, uh,” Tony joked, and soon regretted when one of Gamora’s boots suddenly squeezed his neck against the wall behind him.

“You mock me?”

“I suppose you’re – not familiar with sarcasm,” Tony struggled to croak out. But as soon as he spoke he saw from the corner of his eye as Wanda did her thing with her hands and a red glowing plasma ball pulled Gamora’s foot from his throat and threw her across the cabin.

Gamora was on her feet the next moment though, while Tony was still coughing and trying to let air into his lungs again. He was halfway into the Iron Man suit when a voice from behind them drew all of their attention.

“You should really stop this. _Now,_ ” Bruce said from the entrance to the cockpit. He was looking a little green on the edges. Tony swallowed hard.

Ignoring the warning, Gamora took a step forward. “And why should I?” She had a huge blade – and where the hell had she been keeping that? – on her right hand.

“Because he doesn’t look as good in green as you do,” Tony remarked, unable to help himself. “Trust me.”

T’challa slowly turned to her with both his hands up in surrender. “He’s about to double in size and the thing he turns in to will tear this whole ship apart if we don’t calm down,” he explained.

Gamora looked somewhat wrong-footed from him to Banner. “I don’t believe you.”

“Feel free to tes–”

“Stark, shut up!” T’challa scowled at him.

“Guys,” Bruce warned; his breathing ragged and more elaborate than a moment before. “I can’t –”

Gamora took a step back. They all did. It was a useless effort though. Bruce couldn’t control it anymore and suddenly the Hulk was tearing through his clothes. The ship shook, pending to one side with the sudden weight. Tony had hoped the Asgardian steel could sustain it, but he wasn’t so sure now. The floor was swept from under them and they were all thrown against the side of the aircraft. The last pieces of Tony’s armor closing up around him right before he hit the wall.

The Hulk in all his glory roared at them, but Wanda was faster than Bruce’s alter ego and engulfed the three of them behind a force field. The Hulk smashed his fists against it, but Wanda held her ground.

Tony chanced a look at Gamora while she stared at the Big Guy with bewilderment. He wouldn’t go as far as saying she seemed terrified, but it was a close call.

“Hey, buddy,” he called and waited for the big green eyes to set on him to continue, “Everything’s fine.” Tony raised his hands in a placating gesture. “We’re cool.” He turned to Gamora. “Right?”

She didn’t take her eyes from the Hulk. Tony watched as she swallowed several times. “There’s no problem. I will not report you to Thanos. I have no desire to speak to him.” She glanced from to the rest of them. “Or harm any of you.”

Tony nodded. “We believe her.” He looked at the Big Guy. “Do you?”

The Hulk looked confused. He pressed against Wanda’s shield one more time before finally deciding he didn’t feel like throwing them all into oblivion at the moment and then shook his huge head several times until he finally, finally began to shrink down to Bruce’s size.

Tony let out the huge breath he had been holding, opening the faceplate of the suit to let in more air.

Wanda stumbled backward when she let go of the force feel and T’challa helped her keep on her feet.

None of them looked at Bruce as he retrieved back to the cockpit. He would be embarrassed for some time, and they all knew by this point that the best thing to do was just give him some space to deal.

Gamora approached them with caution. “I apologize.”

Tony bit back the _I told you so_ in favor of something more practical. “You can make up to us by telling everything we need to know about this Thanos fellow.”

“Do you know what he wants with the Stones?” T’challa asked.

“What he always wants with anything,” Gamora answered, “Power.”

-

Thanos was a power hungry tyrant who wanted to bend the whole universe to his will by using the combined power of the Infinity Gems. It seemed like the plot of a bad movie, weren’t for the fact that the guy was succeeding on his quest alarmingly fast.

From the information they had gathered so far, they knew the Gems had once been a single unit, a sentient being. The _only_ sentient being that existed, until it got bored – or depressed, Sam would bet his money on that last one – of being alone and self-destroyed itself (themselves?), creating the rest of the universe with what was left of it. Its remaining power was divided into the six Gems and scattered around the galaxies.

It all sounded like folklore to Sam’s ears. And as it turned out it really was. That was the official story Tony’s new acquaintance had told Stark’s group she had grown up hearing it. She told them Thanos had a gauntlet with slots for the six Gems. From what they knew so far he was pretty close to having the whole set.

“We should check proof the bedtime story with Thor,” Natasha said after they got Tony’s message. It had taken her and Clint four hours to lose the rangers The Collector guy had sent after him. The man was clearly scared of anyone with interest in the Stones. “See if he heard about it.”

Steve was quiet, and the rest of them stayed the same as they waited for his verdict. Sam had been promoted to Captain America – “I’m not calling myself Captain Falcon, Barton. Give it up.” – for some time now. He was the one wielding the shield, not that it would do much in space, but Steve was a sound leader and they had unanimously appointed him as head of their part of the group; hence his Commander title. So they waited for his call.

He considered it for another moment before nodding to Nat. “Contact Thor.”

She saluted him with a completely straight face, though the amusement was clear in her eyes. “On it,” she announced as she turned on her chair and began to type something on the touchscreen keyboard on the dashboard.

Sam thanked his lifetime of Star Trek for how prepared he was for this whole things. Turned out the producers of that show were either not humans or really up to something. None of the things around Sam on the ship were all that unfamiliar to him.

A hologram with Thor’s face appeared above the control panel a few moments later. Steve told him about the Stones. “Indeed, the stories are true,” Thor confirmed. “What of our friend Fury?”

Clint shook his head, answering before Steve. “Nothing.”

“He is a mighty warrior, he has overcome worse. I am assured he will succeed whatever peril he has found himself in.” Thor tried to comfort them. From the looks on Steve’s, Clint’s, and mostly, Natasha’s face he wasn’t successful. Sam wasn’t sure he believed him either.

Steve was the first to shake himself out of the gloomy mood. “What about Thanos? What do you know about him?”

“An untrustworthy warrior,” he declared. “I would sooner trust Loki.”

“That’s comforting,” Clint said. And Sam remembered hearing about how Loki had used him. If this Thanos was worse than Loki then they were in some deep shit.

“I think it would be wise to join forces once more,” Thor advised. Sam shared the same feeling. He wanted to find Fury, he really did, but Tony’s group hadn’t had any luck in three months and following the Stones would undoubtedly lead his group to Thanos or vice versa. It would be better if they were all together to face him.

He placed a hand on Steve’s shoulder to draw his attention. “He’s right,” Sam told him once Steve looked up at him. “Call Tony.”

Steve pressed his lips tightly together. Sam felt bad for putting that weight on his shoulders, but he also trusted Steve’s judgment better than anyone.

“We can’t just give up on Nick,” Nat object.

Sam shook his head. “I’m not saying that. But maybe, when we find Thanos –”

Romanoff cut him off. “Steve?” She asked with a raised eyebrow.

Steve sighed. He looked tired, and they could all see how much being away from Barnes affected him. Sam’s heart ached for the two of them. They deserved so much better than just two years of peace after everything they had gone through.

“I’m sorry, Nat,” Steve finally announced his decision. “This is imminent.”

“So is Nick’s life.”

“We don’t know that,” Barton said. _We don’t know if he’s alive_ , they all heard.

Steve turned his attention back to Thor, who had been silently watching them. “You should come to.”

Thor nodded. “There’s a colony on the largest moon of Saturn called Titan. It is known to be Thanos’ home. It is the best place to find him.”

“Okay, we’ll contact Tony. Meet us there,” he said before disconnecting the call.

“We’re bringing the fight to his doorstep?” Clint asked.

No one answered him. They didn’t have to. That was exactly what they were about to do.

-

After reporting their new plan to Tony Steve left Sam and Clint at the cockpit and went after Natasha in the sleeping quarters at the back of the ship.

The door was open but he knocked nonetheless, waiting for her permission before stepping inside. She acknowledged him with a nod and he sat down next to her on the bed.

“I’m sorry.”

She shook her head. “It’s the right call.”

“We’re not giving up on him, Nat. We’re _not,_ ” Steve promised.

Natasha offered him a small self-deprecating smile. “I know you don’t like him. But he’s done a lot for me, I can’t just leave him here.”

“I don’t agree with some of his methods,” Steve conceded. “But I want to find him as much as you do.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Alright, maybe not _that_ much,” he confessed with a smile and then nudged her shoulder with his. “We’ll find him.” He knew he shouldn’t make a promise he didn’t know he could keep, but it was worth to see her relax somewhat. He stood up. “We should rest while we can.”

Natasha stretched like a cat on the bed. “Yeah, call Wilson, will you. I’m in the mood for a cuddle,” she said with a smirk.

Steve snorted, amused. “Yeah, I’ll do that.” He let out a relieved breath once he was alone, knowing that she was on his side made this whole mess a little less complicated. He just hoped he wouldn’t fail her on his end.

-

Bucky was so bored he was cleaning. For fun.

He had started to rearrange things around the cabin about two hours ago. So far he had already organized the food supply in alphabetical order, reposition everything on the sleeping quarters to the opposite side the wall and was now dealing with the endless unmarked boxes he had stumbled upon on what he had first assumed to be a sort of broom closet. It was an archive, but how Fury could find anything there was beyond Bucky.

The boxes were all the same size, made of black plastic and with the SHIELD logo on one of the sides. Some of them were empty, some had paper files in it, and some had stuff Bucky thought better to leave it alone. The last box he opened had another, smaller box inside of it, this one made of wood.

 There was a pattern of circles carved on the lid and sides. It wasn’t heavy, Bucky discovered as he lifted it from the other box. Something at the back of his mind told him to put it back, but curiosity, as always, got the best of him.

Bucky turned the box around in his hands. It didn’t seem all that special. There wasn’t a latch, just a fend indicating where the two parts met. Bucky contemplated maybe sending a message to Asgard, he could ask Thor or one of his friends if they knew what the symbols meant before opening. In hindsight, he should really have done that.

But at the moment he simply dismissed the idea. Chances were he wouldn’t get a reply any time soon. And it was just a box anyway. He held it by his ear. It wasn’t ticking. And why would fury have a ticking bomb? It was probably some alien jewelry. It looked like a jewelry box.

Bucky opened it.

-

“You guys took your time,” Natasha said as Tony’s group appeared from inside their ship. Steve couldn’t fault her sarcasm. They had been waiting for quite a while now. Thor had already been there when they arrived. He had already explained to them what he knew about Thanos’ fortress. It was far on the horizon but Steve could still see it from where they were.

They would have to leave both ships behind, protected by a cloaking device. Aircrafts would alert their presence sooner than they would prefer. Lucky for them, they could still use the Humvee-likes they had brought in the jet.

“Well, we were doing some Uber service,” Tony retorted. “I’m sorry for wanting to keep my five stars.”

Beside Steve Sam rolled his eyes.

Bruce bypassed Tony and approached them. “Will you,” he hesitated, not looking at any of them, “will you need the Big Guy?”

Steve shot a questioning look to Tony, but Stark just made a circling motion with his finger and mouthed _later_ from behind Bruce.

Thor clapped a heavy hand on Bruce’s shoulder, a big smile on his face. “The aid of the Green Beast is always appreciated.”

Banner shifted on the ball of his feet. “Uh, thanks.” He gestured to his space suit and then to the aircraft they had come from. “I’ll just uh, go change,” he announced before heading back to the ship. The Hulk went out of it a moment later.

Thor and Steve laid out the plan to the rest of them.

“We need to find and destroy the gauntlet,” Steve said. “Assume it is with Thanos.”

“And he’s in there,” Wanda asked, pointing at the fortress.

“That we don’t know yet,” Thor confessed. “I shall check on it.”

“T’challa, Tony and Clint,” Steve began addressing each of them, “you secure the perimeter.” He looked at Natasha. “Romanoff, you and Maximoff find a back entrance and look for any place where they could be hiding Fury.” They both nodded at him.

“What about me, you and the Green Guy?” Sam asked.

Steve smirked at him. “We’re knocking on the front door.”

-

They were so small, just a little bit bigger than a jelly bean. One green and one orange – Soul and Time respectively – resting atop the silky red pillow inside the box, they had a faint glow. The missing Stones. Fury had them the whole time.

What was he trying to do? Have all this power to himself? Fury went missing when he was on his way to the Power Stone. Maybe the people at Nova Corps were on to what he was doing.

“Protecting Earth my ass,” Bucky muttered to himself. Fury wasn’t living on the moon for the greater good. He was after the Stones. Bucky stared at the two in front of him, at loss of what to do. Steve and the others were looking for this, looking for _Fury_.

Bucky’s flesh and blood fingers hovered over the Gems, but he couldn’t bring himself to touch them. He remembered when Sam had made him and Steve sit down through nine hours of Lord of The Rings after Bucky had told him he’d read The Hobbit when it came out. Perhaps it was stupid of him but something at the back of his mind was telling him he really shouldn’t touch those things. He should probably not look at them either.

He set the box aside and ran a hand through his hair. _Think, Barnes_. He tried to imagine what Steve would do in his place, but that wasn’t very reassuring. So instead Bucky tried to think about what Sam would do. Yeah, Sam had followed Steve into a suicide mission after knowing for all of seventy-two hours. Not exactly a role model.

Bucky sighed. “Alright,” he said aloud. “What would Romanoff do?”

_Alert the others, Barnes. That’s what she would do, stupid._

She had found herself in some tight spots in the past, and she survived because she was smart enough to recognize when she was in way over her head.

Buck went to the computers. He typed in a series of codes he had learned from Stark. It was a Hail Mary if he ever knew one, but with a little bit of luck, he could probably reach the Asgardian frequency of the aircrafts Thor had said the team would be using.

But just in case someone else intercepted his message Bucky decide to keep as vague as he could.

**SOS WS**

He hit send and went back to the box. The Stones were still there where he’d left them. Bucky wasn’t exactly sure what they did. There wasn’t a lot of information about it on Earth. He knew that the Time Stone could bend time however its user chose it. He couldn’t even begin to fathom what it was that the Soul Stone did it.

During his researches on the past month, he also found stories about how the combined Infinity Gems had once been a sentient being. Bucky was not sure he believed that particular theory, though.

He was about to put the gems back on the big SHIELD box when the front door of the cabin flew out of its hinges and hit the opposite wall. Suddenly all oxygen left the room. Bucky hadn’t been wearing the space suit – he didn’t have to, not inside – but he did have extensive training in how to hold his breath and work his way through low oxygen conditions. He had enough time to put on the suit before he passed out.

His attacker was faster though. And all too soon a huge purple man was kicking Bucky’s feet from under him. He fell on his hands and knees, doing his best to preserve the little air supply he had. That turned out to be an empty effort when the man brought down the sole of his boot hard on Bucky’s ribs, then all of his remaining oxygen left his lungs and Bucky gasped for air.

He choked on nothing, the need to breathe making him sloppy. When the boot came down again Bucky grabbed it, he wasn’t strong enough to throw his attacker too far, but it was enough to have him lose his balance and crash with the boxes on the floor.

Bucky used the small window to push himself to his feet. He was starting to feel dizzy and a little lightheaded, but HYDRA hadn’t locked him in a fish tank for hours for nothing. He could work past this.

 He took the chair from the computer desk and threw it on the man’s head to gain more time, and then rushed to slip on the suit.

The moment Bucky could breathe again some of the boxes from SHIELD exploded around him and the man stood back up. He was almost the size of the Hulk, maybe bigger, and he knew how to use it. The lack of oxygen clearly wasn’t an issue to him.

Bucky was about to engage when he noticed the man wasn’t looking at him. His eyes were on something _behind_ Bucky. Bucky didn’t need to look back to know what it was.

He was here for the Stones.

Bucky advanced on him, only to be stopped on his track by – something. Tried as he might he couldn’t move a muscle.

"Hello, Sergeant Barnes,” the man said. Bucky struggled against the invisible restrain seizing his muscles, but nothing happened. “Oh, sorry about that.” He didn’t seem to have done anything but suddenly Bucky could move his mouth again.

"Who the fuck are you?” he raged. “How d'ya know my name?”

The man touched his own chest. "My name is Thanos. I know about all of you. We have a - mutual friend."

Fury.

"Is he dead?"

Instead of answering, the man smiled at him. He moved his hands and something caught Bucky’s attention. The other Stones. Thanos had the other four. "It was foolish of them to leave you here all alone.”

-

 The Hulk drew all the attention to the front gates of the fortress.

Steve and Sam left him to distract the guards there and used the opportunity to enter the place unnoticed.

That didn’t last long though and much too soon the people inside the fortress were alerted to their presence.

Thanos’ staff was not big in numbers but he sure knew how to pick his fighters. They were all from different species and each of them had a unique fighting style. It worked in Steve’s favor on the base that they didn’t attack in groups but rather one at a time.

Sam shared the shield with him, making it bounce from the walls directly onto Steve’s hand. He nodded at Sam and threw it back in the direction of the group approaching them from the inside. Sam picked the rebound as they ran past the knocked out soldiers.

“Hey Cap, Commander,” Stark’s voice came from the comms. “The perimeter is as secure as it can be. Where to now?”

“We’re kind of running blind here,” Steve confessed. “Thor, what’s your status?”

Another small group was waiting for them in the next room they entered. Steve kicked the first soldier to approach him on the chest and sent him flying backward in the direction of another two.

The other three zeroed in on Sam, but like it happened before they went at him one at a time and Sam used the Shield to knock the head of the first one on the ground.

Steve didn’t get to watch much because his guys were up again and the time they decided to be a team. They raised their fists at him at the same time and Steve barely had time to duck from the triple blow. But the distraction cost him the upper hand and the soldier who had orange skin and a tail used it to lash the back of Steve’s knees.

He fell on his ass but took the guy down with him by the tail.

The trio hissed at Steve. But the other two couldn’t do much with Steve using their friend as a shield, so he held his body up as he got back to his feet. It wasn’t easy with the creature kicking and screaming but once Steve was vertical again he threw the alien against his friends and watched as they went down like bowling pins.

Steve looked over to see Sam walking back to him. Only then he realized he hadn’t heard Thor’s answer.

“Commander?” Thor had been calling him.

“Yeah.”

“The throne room is empty,” Thor informed. “He is not here.”

“Yeah, but someone else is,” Natasha’s voice came through. “We found Fury.”

-

By the time T’challa and Tony got to the others. Sam and Steve had already fought their way through the fortress until they reached the prison cells. None of them were empty but Fury was the only prisoner alive. He was chained to the wall behind him and it took the combined efforts of Steve, Thor, and the Hulk to break him free.

“Please,” he said weakly as Romanoff helped him to his feet. It seemed like Thanos had been starving him. “Tell me you’re just in time to kill the bastard.”

“In time?” Tony asked, a very bad feeling creeping up on him. “In time for what?”

 “Where’s Thanos?” Steve asked.

“God! You didn’t stop him.” It felt like Fury was accusing them, which was a big fucking dick move on his part since they were here for him. But that was not the only reason. Thanos had four of them, and he wasn’t here, and something wasn’t adding up to this whole story.

Steve seemed to reach somewhat the same conclusion as Tony and pressed again. Where is he?”

“He’s going after the other two Stones,” Fury finally confessed. “On the moon.”

“Which one?” Wanda asked.

“Ours.”

Tony’s blood went cold. He looked at Steve and saw all color had run from his face.

Bucky.

-

“You left him alone with that?” Steve accused he stepped closed but T’challa stopped him before he could get his hands on Fury.

“What are you talking about?”

“Nick, you said someone should stay at your station,” Natasha clarified. And Steve was glad for it because right now he was seeing red. Once again Nick Fury was at the center of something potentially dangerous to Bucky.

“Yeah, but not alone.”

“You knew the Stones were there,” Tony said.

Fury snorted. “Of course, why do you think _I_ was there? For the view?”

Steve tried to force his way through T’challa but this time Sam and Clint helped build a wall between him and Fury.

“If anything happens to him I’m gonna kill you,” Steve said before turning his back to all of them.

“Steve,” Sam called. Steve heard him jogging toward him but didn’t stop, “where you going?”

“I’m going back to my husband.”

They called his name again but thankfully none of them tried to stop him as Steve walked away from them.

-

“So beautiful, aren’t they?” Thanos said as he placed one Stone at a time on the empty slots of the gauntlet on his right hand. “Did you know you can use one to track the other?” He threw the wood box on Bucky’s feet. “If it weren’t for those symbols blocking their power, I would have found them a long time ago.”

Great, Bucky’s curiosity had led this nut job here.

“What the hell do you want them for?” Bucky tried to stall. He hoped to god the others had gotten his message and were on their way now. He was still stuck where he stood by whatever Thanos had done to him.

“Unlimited power, little soldier,”  Thanos explained. “I can do anything I want. Here, let me give you a demonstration.” He paced in front of Bucky as if contemplating his options. “Ever wonder how life would be without your Captain? Oh, if he could see you right now. So helpless.”

Bucky would be damned if he would show fear now. “You wanna kill me, pall. Go ahead. You’re not the first to try.”

Thanos snorted. “You misunderstand me, sergeant. I will not kill _you_. I’m going to kill him,” he clarified with a smile.

"Don't touch him," Bucky snarled.

"That's the beauty of it all, Sergeant. I don't have to. I could just kill you, of course. But that would just inspire your friends to come after me. I could do without the interference. So instead, I’ll just give you a different matter to worry about."

Bucky didn’t have time to wonder what he meant by that because the next thing he knew the Stones were glowing and then everything went white for a mere second before Bucky was falling to his knees.

He blinked several times to adjust his vision back to normal. It took him some time to actually be able to see the room around him again, and when he did he realized he was alone.

What the hell had just happened?

-

Steve left the Asgardian vehicles for the group and hijacked one of the alien crafts parked on the front of the fortress to take him back to the aircrafts.

One aircraft would be enough for them to head home so Steve didn’t feel bad as he climbed the other one and set its course to Earth’s moon.

He was surprised none of them tried to contact him for the rest of the journey. They had probably noticed how angry he was with this whole thing.

Steve didn’t even have to be here. He should be home eating takeout and watching something on his laptop with his feet up resting on Bucky’s legs. They could be planning another night out to the jazz club Bucky had discovered last year. They could be deciding on a name for their new pet.

Instead, Bucky was in danger and Steve was here because he trusted Nick Fury again and ran to his aid when he called. Steve should know better by now.

The trip to Earth’s moon was surprisingly quicker than he had assumed it would be. And Steve did try to message the others halfway, but for some reason, none of his channels were working. That was until he began to approach the landing pointing, and then the dashboard light began to blink with an incoming message.

Steve opened it.

**SOS WS**

Not soon his feet touched the ground Steve was running – as much as he could on that gravity – toward the base. It was the only thing around.

He spotted Bucky from afar and let out a breath of relief. Bucky was alive, he was walking and he seemed to be – Steve squinted – fixing the front door. Steve hadn’t been here before so he really couldn’t say if that was a sign of Thanos’ attack of a normal occurrence.

Bucky had his back to him and Steve’s coms weren’t synchronized with his so he had to wait until he was within arm’s distance to call him.

 “Buck?” Steve said as he placed a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “Are you okay, I got your messa—”

Clearly the wrong move. Bucky swung his left arm around and hit Steve's helmet square on the jaw the next second. Steve fell back on his ass, his eyes on the cracked plastic, which luckily didn't break. It had been a long time since he was on the receiving end of one of those and he had forgotten how much Bucky could pack a wallop.

He raised his hands in surrender from where he was on the ground. “Woah, Buck, it’s me. What happened? I just got your message.” But when Bucky looked at him there was no recognition in his eyes. Steve’s stomach dropped to his feet. “Oh, god! What did he do?” Had Thanos’ used the Stones on him? “They messed with your memories.”

It wasn’t even a question, it was cold dark realization. Thanos _had_ used the Stones on Bucky. Steve felt like he was going to throw up when Bucky just blinked at him, still confused.

“Sorry, pal. Not ringing any bells. And uh,” he snorted, as he made a show of looking around. “Pretty sure HYDRA’s not here. Nobody messed with my memories.” He shook his head. “Not in a long time.”

“But – it’s me! Steve,” he felt stupid having to clarify, but he did it anyway as he pushed himself back on his feet. “Steve Rogers, your--”

“Hey, I’m gonna stop you right there,” Bucky cut him, crossing his arms over his chest. “I know who Steve Rogers is. And you’re not him. I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing but it stops right now.”

Bucky was glaring hard at him and Steve didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. What the hell was going on?

Steve raised his hands in surrender, telegraphing his moves as he stepped closer. Bucky kept his stance but he uncrossed his arms, dropping them to his sides as he prepared for an attack.

“Look, Buck,” Steve began; another step closer. “Something’s clearly going on here that we don’t understand. So let’s just – maybe we should find the others and –”

Once Steve was within grabbing distance Bucky did take a step back. “I ain’t going anywhere with you.”

Steve’s hand stopped midway, he let it drop back to his side as he huffed frustrated. “Let me just call Stark, oaky? Maybe he can help us.” Tony would know what to do. One of them would know how to reverse whatever the Infinity Gems had done to Bucky.

Bucky cocked his head to the side. “You know Tony?”

This was a fucking nightmare.

“Of course I know Tony. I knew him before you, Bucky. You know him _through_ me,” Steve tried to explain. “It’s me, goddamn it! Steve.”

Bucky snorted. “You know what, your name may even be Steve _Rogers_ , ‘kay. That’s not a crime. But that doesn’t change the fact that I. Don’t. Know. Who. You. Are!” Steve cringed at the harsh words, he opened his mouth but Bucky wasn’t done yet. “The only Steve Rogers I knew died of pneumonia in December of ’41.” This time Bucky was the one to walk toward Steve. “And you’re definitely not him,” he said turning his back on him. “You don’t even look like Rogers.”

Steve swallowed hard. Part of him had been waiting for the particular shoe to drop since 1943. He watched Bucky disappear inside the lunar station as he stood there, rooted to his spot, trying to understand how come words could hurt so much.


	3. Chapter 3

Steve Rogers.

Steve Rogers.

Bucky hadn’t thought about the skinny kid in over a lifetime. And now this fellow showed up here and said that was his name, said he knew Bucky; said they knew _each other_.

As soon as Bucky closed the door behind him – which he still had to finish fixing, though he guessed it would hold for now – doubt began to creep up on him. There was something about the man out there; Bucky couldn’t put his finger on it.

He remembered when HYDRA used to toy with his mind, to make him think he was back home, to make him call out for people who weren’t there. Bucky walked back to the door and almost threw it off again with the unnecessary force he used to pull it open.

He marched to where _Rogers_ was still standing. From the slight flinch of the man’s body, Bucky could tell his presence hadn’t gone unnoticed but the guy kept his back to Bucky long enough for him to clock him on the neck with the metal of his elbow.

Rogers fell on his face and Bucky struggled a little – the man was heavy even in this gravity – to turn him around. He was unconscious, just like Bucky needed him to be right now. Bucky took hold of one of his feet and dragged him back to the station.

The man had mentioned picking up Bucky’s distress signal. Once inside he left the limp body by the door while he looked for something to use as restraints. The man had also mentioned Tony, Tony who hadn’t sent a single message in months.

After some more digging, Bucky finally found a pair of zip ties. He glanced from the ridiculously thin strips of plastic to the very much built guy on the floor. Bucky sighed, it would have to do. He just needed answers, and once he got them... This guy’s replies would decide his fate. Running was definitely a negative sign.

Bucky manhandled the man into a sitting position against the pillar in the middle of the main room. He brought Rogers’ hands behind his back and used the zip ties to lock him to the post. He made sure they were firmly in place before kicking Roger’s legs to wake him up.

Rogers jumped in his place with a start, he shook his head and his eyes ran over the entire room before settling on Bucky, first with relief, then confusion, and then, at last, he settled for something akin to sorrow.

Bucky didn’t have a gun because well, it wouldn’t work out there and he would send the whole cabin up in flames if he fired one here so he settled for a knife. This Rogers fella would be surprised if the damage Bucky could cause with it.

But for now, he hoped the menace of his presence would suffice. He opted to stand up and loom over the guy instead of sitting down in front of him.

“Where are the Avengers?”

“Buck, _please_.” The guy ignored his question and pulled against the restraints.

Bucky had the knife against his throat over the space suit the next second. “You break those and you’re dead.” He stared at Rogers without blinking for several seconds and felt as Rogers swallowed against his hand holding the knife, but otherwise, he didn’t avert his gaze. Rogers didn’t even look scared. Bucky pressed the blade firmly, one more push and he would tear through the material. “Are we clear?”

It took some moment but Rogers finally nodded in agreement.

Straightening his back Bucky finally put the knife away and dragged the computer chair – the one he didn’t break by throwing it at Thanos – and sat down facing his prisoner.

“Where are the Avengers?” He saw as the guy’s lips moved to form his name again, instead of the answer, so Bucky simply reached and pulled Rogers helmet off with enough force to send Rogers dipping to the side. “The front door’s broken,” he told the guy as he righted himself. “It means oxygen is scarce. If you wanna breathe normal you’ll answer my questions.” Rogers’ breathing was already coming out faster than what would be normal and Bucky watched as it dawned on him what was going to happen if he didn’t comply. He nodded. Bucky stepped back. “Last chance,” he announced, “where are the Avengers?”

-

Steve evened out his breathing as he tried to stay calm. He couldn’t do anything that would make Bucky strike against him. The last thing he wanted was for Bucky to do something he would undoubtedly regret and beat himself for it later.

He had to buy his time for now until he could find what exactly the Infinity Stones had done to Bucky’s memories. The best thing to do now was to answer Bucky’s question in a manner that wouldn’t get Steve killed. He needed to keep this going until the rest of the group got here.

“Last I heard they were headed to Thanos’ lair.”

Bucky arched an eyebrow at him. “How d’ya know that?”

Steve had always been a shitty liar, and Bucky had always been good at reading him. He hoped that whatever happened had also messed with that ability otherwise Bucky would see right through him and bury that knife in Steve’s chest. Luckily though, he wasn’t exactly lying when he said, “We crossed paths. Then I came here because I got your signal,” he explained. “I knew they would be too busy and you seemed urgent.”

Bucky studied him through narrowed eyes and Steve held his breath, noticing at the back of his mind how it was actually getting a bit hard to pull air into his lungs.

“Can I get that helmet back now, Bucky?”

“I don’t know if I believe you,” Bucky confessed, still glaring intensively at Steve. A few seconds later he stood up and picked Steve’s helmet from the floor. Bucky toyed with it on his hands. “Why are you using that name?”

Steve’s heart beat faster against his chest. Was Bucky remembering him? “What name?” Steve asked, not sure if he was talking about the nickname.

“Steve Rogers,” Bucky clarified.

Steve shrugged. He refused to let his hope die. “Cos it’s my name.”

“Hum,” Bucky let out as he crouched in front of Steve and placed the helmet back on him. Instantly Steve took a big gulp of air, filling up his lungs with it, he hadn’t realized how shallow he had been breathing the past minutes. He was almost high on it now.

“You don’t believe me?” Steve pushed. He had to try, he couldn’t help it.

Bucky looked confused. It made Steve’s heart ached. He had seen that look before, he remembered how much Bucky still doubted himself even after years away from HYDRA, how frustrated he got when he couldn’t remember some small detail from their past. Steve hated to see that look on his face again. He hated even more that he was the one causing it.

Bucky walked away from him without answering it. He fished a toolbox from under the computer’s desk and went back to fixing the door, completely ignoring Steve’s presence.

Steve sighed.

 _I’ll make it right, Buck_ , he thought, _I promise._

-

They left Saturn’s moon once it became clear Thanos wouldn’t be showing up anytime soon. Thor went first, taking Fury with him to Asgard so that he could get some medical assistance. And then the rest of them set course to the moon.

Now that that particular cat was out of the bag, they were going to need the greatest soldier in human history to go after Thanos.

Tony hadn’t realized how tired he was until he sat down next to Wanda on the aircraft. And then one minute he was enjoying her quiet company and the next he was out in open space, with nothing to see but miles of dark blue and stardust.

He noticed he was holding something on his hands, and when he looked down Tony saw it with wide eyes. A Stark bomb. But… He didn’t make those anymore. He tried to let go but the thing was glued to his hands. Right then Tony also realized with horror his suit was down. He couldn’t breathe, he tried to move but he was paralyzed. And then he was falling.

And he fell right onto Thanos’s hand. Except he looked like Ultron. He laughed and raised his other hand to show Tony what he had on it. The other Avengers. Before Tony could say anything Ultron slash Thanos closed his fist around them.

Tony woke up with start and the sound of crushing bones still resonating in his ears.

“Are you alright?” Wanda asked.

“Peachy,” Tony panted in reply with a hand on his chest. Wanda shot him an unimpressed look. “I’m fine. It’s just a nightmare,” he conceded. “You know, being in space is not as fun as my child self was led to believe.”

Wanda smiled sympathetically at him. “You must be missing Pepper.”

Tony took in a shaky breath. “Yeah, I’m actually glad she’s not here.”

“You don’t want her to fight? You know she could.”

“ _She_ doesn’t want to fight. She didn’t choose this kamikaze life,” he smirked. “I’ve caused enough trouble as it is.”

Before Tony could dwell even more on his personal life Clint appeared from the cockpit to announce they were about to land.

“How pissed do you think he is at us?” Barton asked as he sat down next to them.

-

When the other Avengers got to the lunar station Steve could have wept in relief. All would be okay now, they would talk to Bucky, they would explain, and then together they would go after Thanos and reverse whatever he had done to Bucky.

Steve’s hopes were shattered the minute the group laid eyes on him.

“Uh, Barnes,” Tony called, and then pointed at where Steve was still sitting on the floor against a pillar, making a huge effort to not break the restraints around his wrists. “You have a man tied up”

“Tony.” Even as he said it Steve’s heart was already sinking.

“And he knows my name.” Tony frowned at him. “Who’s this?”

They all looked from Steve to Bucky, except for Natasha who kept staring intensively at Steve. He tried to get some sort of reading on her, but he came up short. The look on her face was closer to suspicion than recognition.

“Well, _he_ claims I know him, that we all do.” Bucky crossed his arms over his chest as he glared at Steve. “He mentioned you were going to Thanos.”

“How could he know that?” T’challa asked.

Bucky closed in on Steve. “He said you met midway.”

“Uh, no. The only friend we made so far was a green chick. And, surprise, surprise: she was related to our arch enemy,” Tony helpfully explained.

By this point Bucky had already fixed the door, so right before the group showed up he changed from his own space suit to a t-shirt and sweats, and took away the helmet off Steve’s; meaning that the knife was actually touching Steve’s throat this time.

“You give me one reason,” Bucky hissed between gritted teeth.

“I came to help you,” Steve tried to argue. “I told you I got your message.”

“Why d’you lie?”

“I – I thought you wouldn’t accept my help otherwise.”

“Who’s to say he’s not working for Thanos,” Natasha finally broke her silence. “He could be a spy.”

Steve sighed. If Natasha didn’t give him the benefit of the doubt none of them would, not even Bucky. They didn’t know him. Steve himself would be suspicious if he were on the other side of this. “My name’s Steve Rogers. I know it’s hard to believe, but we all know each other. Something happened, I don’t know what. But it made you forget me.”

Bucky looked at Bruce. “Do you think the Stones could do that?”

“I don’t know, maybe?” Suddenly all heads were turned to him and Bruce shifted on his feet. “I’m really out of my depth here.”

“Uh, nope.” Only when he spoke did Steve realize Tony hadn’t been paying attention to them. A tablet had appeared on his hands out of nowhere. He shook his head, turning the Starkpad around for them to see the screen. There was a Google page opened with Steve’s name on the search bar. There were no results. “This guy doesn’t exist.”

“Maybe he’s an alien,” Clint suggested.

“I am _not_ an alien,” Steve clarified. “You brought me here with you! Why would you do that if you didn’t know me?”

“Well, _Steve_ ,” Nat said. “Right now we don’t believe you because we don’t _know_ you.”

Steve tried in vain to talk about things only someone who was friends with them would know, but to his utmost despair everything he said was either public record or had been erased from their memories alongside himself.

He had no idea what to do anymore.

“What now, Cap?” Barton asked Sam.

 Steve jumped at the opportunity. “Who was Captain America before Sam? Who gave you the shield?”

“Stark did actually. No one was Captain America before me.”

“This is,” _a nightmare, please wake me up_ , “interesting.”

“Yeah, found the project buried amongst dad’s old things. Apparently, the army had been trying to create some sort of super soldier during the War.”

Bucky raised his hands. “The Russians did it!”

An idea flowered on Steve’s mind, something that could make them believe him, make _Bucky_ believe him. “In ’45, right? That’s when they found you.” He expected to see some spark of recognition in Bucky’s eyes, instead, he was met with confusion.

“Uh no, pal. You’ve missed some History lessons. I’ve been with HYDRA since ’43.”

“What? But… your arm –”

“I broke it trying to escape and then.” He shrugged. “The rest is literally History.”

“But the Russians weren’t HYDRA.”

“They were involved in the project, hence the tattoo I used to have,” Bucky said, shrugging the metal arm.

“Look,” Natasha drew the attention back to the matter, “this is all beside the point,” she said. “What do we do with him, Sam?”

Sam inhaled deeply as they all looked expectantly at him. “Well,” he pondered, “It’s not like he has a lotta places to go running to, right? I mean, he’s wearing a suit,” he pointed, “so he clearly needs oxygen, just like us.” Sam averted his eyes from Steve to Bucky “Did he cause you any trouble so far?”

Steve looked pleadingly at Bucky, and even with no memory of him, it seemed like they were still capable of holding an entire conversation without having to say anything. Bucky knew Steve could break free; he had dragged Steve inside, so he probably noticed Steve was far from being light. Maybe he could share Barton’s theory of Steve being an alien, but regardless, Bucky noticed Steve was at least as strong he.

So the question Steve thought he was seeing behind his eyes was: Are you going to be honest? To which Steve nodded in confirmation and in return Bucky jutted his chin on his direction, letting Steve answer Sam himself. “The restraints are not going to hold me,” he announced. “I know my word doesn’t mean much right now, but I swear to you – to all of you – I’m not here as a spy or to cause you any harm.” He turned back to Sam. “Like you said, I need oxygen. I got nowhere else to go.”

That last part wasn’t exactly true; Steve still had the Asgardian ship he had used to come here. It was still cloaked a few miles away. However, it seemed like none of them knew him enough yet to see the truth through him. Except perhaps Bucky who had an eyebrow raised at him.

Steve held his breath as he waited for Bucky to sell him to the rest of the group, but a few moments passed and Bucky kept quiet, they all did, waiting in silence for Sam to make his mind.

“Alright,” Sam said at long last. “Rogers stays. I guess we could use another pair of hands. That’s why we came here after all right? Which reminds me,” he said to Bucky, “You’re officially back on active duty.”

Bucky grinned. “Fantastic, I’ve been growing a little bit bored in here. Almost thanked Thanos for dropping by.”

“What stopped you?” T’challa inquired amused.

“Too busy passing out,” Bucky deadpanned. “So, when are we going after him?”

“We need to draw up some sort of plan first,” Sam replied. “Mind if we crash at yours today. And uh, guess you can untie Rogers now too,” Sam said it to Bucky who looked at Steve who, for his part, looked at both of them for a final confirmation. He was met with twin shrugs in response.

Steve pulled his hands away from each other and the zip locks fell apart like paper.

“Well,” Barton drawled, a smirk playing on his face. “We could definitely use _that_ pair of hands.”

-

Despite the tiredness of her body, Wanda couldn’t sleep, she padded her socked feet through the small lunar station until she was out of the sleeping quarters and into the command center.

She couldn’t help but think of her brother in quiet moments like this. Pietro would have loved a mission such as this. Wanda could see it in her mind’s eye as if it were yesterday, the two of them playing around the living room, pretending to be astronauts.

Not for the first time she caught herself wondering, if maybe… If the Infinity Gems held the power they were said to have, perhaps. Wanda shook her head to clear those thoughts away from her mind. It was foolish. No one should meddle with matters of life and death. There was always a price to be paid in the end.

“Couldn’t sleep either?” She was so engrossed in her thoughts that the foreign voice made Wanda flinch in surprise. She looked down to see Steve Rogers still sitting against the same pillar he had been when they arrived, only now his arms were free. “There’s a lot of people in here, but it’s so quiet out there, isn’t it?” He wasn’t looking at her, and it felt more as if he were talking to himself.

After just a few seconds of consideration, Wanda sat down by his side, drawing her knees up against her chest, she turned only her head so she could face him. “You have a problem with the quiet?”

He shrugged. “It’s kinda hard to get used to, I’ve been surrounded by noise my whole life.” He offered her a small, self-deprecating smile. “Even when I was hard of hearing.”

“When my parents died, the blast from the bomb made me deaf for almost five minutes,” Wanda confessed, with no idea of why she had divulged that particular information.

“I could barely hear from my left ear until I was twenty-four,” he shared it with her in return. She thought he would follow up with an explanation of how he had recovered his hearing but he fell silent instead. Wanda didn’t push.

She shared the silence with him until he spoke again.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said, sounding heartfelt, “about your brother and Vision.” Her eyes widened in surprise for a second before she schooled her features. “You may not –” he hesitated for a second before continuing, “you still have people that love you around, know that.”

Wanda watched him. Trust didn’t come easy for her but Steve Rogers seemed like he could rapidly earn his. “Thank you.”

The rest of the night was spent enjoying each other’s quiet company, and even though she could not explain it, Wanda felt at peace beside the stranger.

-

Rogers was the first thing that came to Bucky’s mind upon waking up. When Bucky went to check on him he found Steve still on the floor, sleeping shoulder to shoulder with Wanda. They both looked peaceful in their sleep and part of Bucky regretted having to wake them up.

Nevertheless, he did, because he could hear the rest of the group getting up and they would have to start planning for the attack against Thanos soon.

Wanda was on her feet the moment Bucky’s hand left her shoulder after he called her name.

Rogers was a bit of a different story. He groaned, turning on his side. “Five minutes, Buck,” Steve mumbled and for some reason that made Bucky’s heart speed up in his chest. He was glad Wanda was already out of earshot, having disappeared inside the cabin.

Bucky crouched down to Rogers’ level and softly shook him. “Hey,” he called, “c’mon, we should be moving soon.”

After a small eternity, Rogers finally opened his eyes. He blinked owlishly at Bucky before greeting him with a blinding, earnest smile. “Mornin’, Buck.”

Bucky opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water, not knowing how to deal with the seriously breathtaking sight in front of him. He hadn’t paid a lot of attention yesterday, but now that they weren’t treating Rogers like an imminent threat, well… the man could give any underwear model back on Earth a run for their money. But that was not something Bucky should be thinking about now. Or ever. So he literally shook the thought out of his mind.

“Uh,” Bucky let out and he watched with no small amount of disappointment as the smile dropped from Steve’s face, replaced with a sad furrow of his brows.

“Rise and shine, Prisoner Zero.” Tony’s voice startled them both away from the staring match they were unconsciously playing. Bucky stood up and offered a hand for Steve to do the same as the Avengers filled in the small room. “Your coffee sucks,” Tony said, eyeing his mug – Bucky’s mug – as if it had personally affronted him.

“‘S not mine,” he clarified. “It’s Fury’s. Where’s he, by the way?” Nick had a lot of explanations to give. Bucky had known from the start, the ex-SHIELD director had been hiding something. But this was a whole other level, he was harboring Infinity Stones, only to have the group running around the universe on a fool’s errand. Bucky was very keen to hear what he had to say.

“Asgard,” Sam answered. “He was pretty beat when we found him.” Bucky shot him an unimpressed look. If Wilson was expecting sympathy he should look for it in someone who hadn’t spent over Fury’s entire lifespan in captivity. Bucky didn’t use his case as measure much – because then anything else would seem minor – but he would throw his ace if Fury played those cards with him. Sam though, just rolled his eyes.  “And yes, he’s aware he’s made some bad calls.”

Bucky snorted but refrained from saying anything.

“Yeah, but no harm done, right,” Tony said. Then he gestured up and down at Bucky. “I mean, literally, no harm. Anyone else wondering why?” Bucky had debated the same thing himself, but he couldn’t find a reason for Thanos to spare his life. And then Rogers showed up and the subject was pushed away from Bucky’s mind altogether.

“That’s because –” Rogers and Banner spoke at the same time. Steve let Bruce go first.

“That’s because,” he repeated, “he doesn’t have to. We pose no threat to him.” That seemed to shut down whatever Rogers has been about to say and he remained quiet, even after Bruce gave him the floor.

“That’s what _he_ thinks,” T’challa interjected. “We cannot afford to think like that.”

“So what do we do?” Clint asked.

“What we always do, Pinky,” Stark remarked, the reference lost to Bucky and, by the look on his face, also Rogers. “We save the world.”

-

Natasha quietly observed as the rest of the group – mainly Stark, Banner, and T’challa – began to draw up a plan of attack on Thanos.  She turned her attention to James, only to find him subtly watching Rogers.

James was a smart man; there was a reason for him to have kept Rogers alive, despite all the warning bells. Natasha just had to find what it was.

She tuned Stark’s voice back on as Tony started pointing where each of them should be. It didn’t escape her notice how he had already included Rogers in it.

“Since you made friends with him first,” Tony said to Bucky, “You get to pair up with Rogers.”  James didn’t object, but Rogers seemed surprised they were counting on him. So was the rest of the group apparently.

“Tony.”

“What? We can’t just leave him here. And ‘sides, look at the size of him!” Tony protested.

“We don’t know if we can trust him,” Natasha broke her silence. They all turned to her. Rogers looked like she had just kicked his puppy. Actually, _he_ looked like a kicked puppy, an overgrown one. She put him out of his misery. “But we should give him a chance.” His relief sigh wasn’t lost on her, nor was the naked gratitude stamped on his face when he nodded at her, which Natasha responded with one of her own. She knew how it felt – her eyes went to Barton of their own accord – she wouldn’t be here now if someone hadn’t given her the benefit of the doubt.

As their leader, Sam held the final say and the group turned to him expectantly. “Alright,” he conceded. “Guess we can grant you an honorary title.”

“Thank you, Sam,” Rogers said, looking far more touched by Sam’s offered than he was when Stark placed him on the battle plan.

Sam snorted. “Don’t thank me yet,” he smirked at Steve, “you might change your mind once you see what we’re facing.”

-

There was a major flaw in their plan, one which Bucky was about to point out when Rogers spoke, “If I may.”

“Yes, Rogers, feel free to give in your two cents,” Tony said.

Steve blushed but continued nonetheless. “You have a problem here,” he pointed schematics of Thanos’ fortress. “The warriors inside will move to the back of the castle as soon as we enter,” he pointed at another room, “and then trap us here. This wall can slide shut.”

“You’ve been inside before.” Bucky realized. He was going to say that whoever was inside the fortress would use the big room as a bait to lure them in and trap them there, but he had no idea about the walls because he hadn’t been there yet.

Steve scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah, I was – I help –” he stammered. “I helped to get a prisoner out.”

“See,” Stark jumped in, seemly unaware of Steve’s discomfort, “told you he’d be useful.”

“Yeah, this is all nice and all, but we’re forgetting something,” Sam pointed. “Thanos wasn’t there the last time. What’s to say he’ll be now?”

It was a fair question, one to which, thankful to his boredom days, Bucky had the answer to. He walked over to Fury’s deposit, picked one of the SHIELD issued boxes – that had survived Thanos – and placed it atop of Stark’s papers. Tony let out an affronted yelp but Bucky ignored him.

“He will when he sees what we have.” He took the lid off the box and the rest of the group closed in to see inside. It was just as well since Bucky didn’t really want to put his hands on that.

Even without the infinity Stone in it, Loki’s scepter still seemed like it could cause some damage.

“Where the hell…”

“Fury’s got an interesting stash in here.”

Rogers shook his head. “We shouldn’t mess with this,” he warned, staring wearily at the staff.

“Awn, Stefan,” Stark mocked, “Your concern is duly noted, but we _are_ in dire need of some big guns and by that, I do not mean your biceps.” 

Steve didn’t even bother correcting him on the name or even acknowledging the comment, instead, he just shot Stark an unimpressed look and turned his focus to Sam. “Are you sure about this?”

Wilson didn’t get a chance to answer. Clint was vigorously shaking his head beside him, and he seemed a little pale when he spoke, “That thing’s not getting near me.” He took a step back to make his position clear.

“How do we even know if it works without the Stone?” Wanda interjected.

Bucky exhaled heavily. None of them understood what he had in mind. “It doesn’t matter if it works or not,” he explained. “It’s something powerful and Thanos will want it on the sole fact that we have it.” He gestured to the door of the closet. “And if you really don’t wanna use this, I’m sure there’s something else amongst Fury’s crap.”

“I don’t think we have the time to search for another object that would be equally powerful,” T’challa reminded them.

“Yeah, I agree,” Sam concurred. “We should use the staff.”

On the corner of his eye, Bucky noticed as Rogers quietly approached Wanda. “You alright with this?” Steve asked, his voice too low for anyone but Bucky and, of course, Wanda to hear. She gave him a curious glance. “I know your abilities came from the scepter,” Rogers explained himself.

“I’ll be fine,” Wanda reassured him; gratitude was clear on her face.

Bucky narrowed his eyes at the scene.  Was Rogers hitting on her?  He was, wasn’t he? Why the hell would he care? Why the hell would he _show_ he cared? He didn’t know Maximoff, he didn’t know any of them. All Rogers knew about them was stuff he’d gotten from the internet.

Suddenly done with this whole thing, Bucky stormed off the meeting to go and get changed into his space suit, so that he could go outside. He ignored Stark’s calls. Bucky would catch up with their plan in a moment, but for now, he needed some time alone to try and figure it out why his stomach was in a tight knot after watching Rogers’ little scene.

-

Steve glared down at the stealth uniform, his only item of clothing. He should have asked Stark for something more similar to his old outfit. It had worked before, and perhaps Steve would be able to juggle some memories from the team if he were wearing it.

The rest of Steve’s gear was in the ship. He couldn’t just take off to go get it. There was no chance to sneak out unnoticed, and once they saw him they would ask where he was going. If the team wasn’t already suspicious, they would definitely be when they discover Steve was hiding an Asgardian ship.

Dismissing the idea for good, Steve exhaled tiredly, resigning himself to his fate. The stealth uniform and the space suit would have to do. They would be leaving tomorrow.

The team was having dinner – eating the rations Bucky had brought with him – in the sleeping quarters. When Sam invited him to join them Steve merely grabbed a protein bar and excused himself to go eat at the main room. Bucky had been in a sour mood for a couple of hours, and Steve had no idea why, but he decided it would be better not to intrude now that Buck had finally come back inside.

Bucky didn’t know him and, atop of that, he seemed not to like Steve a lot at the moment.

Steve was so lost in thought he didn’t hear Clint until Barton deliberately cleared his throat behind him. Steve turned and was almost hit in the chest by a ration package, catching it on the last minute thanks to his reflexes.

“Seemed like one wouldn’t be enough for you,” he explained after Steve glanced from the package to his face in confusion.

“Thanks.”

Clint didn’t seem like he would be moving back to the others any time soon. Steve suspected he was waiting to see if Steve would eat. Knowing Barton, it was probably a ploy to check if Steve really was human. So Steve indulged him by tearing up the wrap and taking small bites from the bar.

Steve chewed on in methodically, watching Clint as much as Barton was watching him. It was bone dry and it tasted like nothing, Steve had to force it down with an audible swallow. He probably made a face because Clint was suddenly smirking at him. 

“Is this a test?”

Barton’s smirk broadened. “You passed it.”

“Good to know,” Steve replied dryly.

Clint dropped the act. “What are you really doing here, man?” he asked with a more sober expression.

Steve was tired of having to repeat himself, but it seemed like there wasn’t any other way.  “I told you already,” he said, exasperated. “Only you don’t believe me.”

“Look,” Clint began, taking a seat on the computer desk and managing to almost knock the keyboard to the ground. “A good chunk of us had their heads messed up one way or another at some point in their lives. Trust won’t come easy just cos you said so.”

Steve understood that. It was part of the reason he had stopped insisting and started playing along. He didn’t tell Wanda why he was worried about her being near Loki’s scepter, he didn’t tell her she was like a sister to him. She wouldn’t buy it because for all intents and purposes Steve had died way before her parents were even born.

“But you’re giving me a chance,” he reminded.

“Yeah,” Clint agreed, “don’t push it.” He jumped off the desk. “But hey, in the off chance you’re telling the truth? I’ll be damn glad we didn’t leave you to rot on the moon,” he said before walking away.

“Much appreciated,” Steve mumbled under his breath, letting his head hang low.

And Barton’s hearing aid was probably a lot more advanced than a standard pair because he actually caught Steve’s words. “Don’t mention it,” he said. Steve looked up to see him with an arm up as he disappeared inside.

-

They weren’t even halfway there when the first missile showed up on the ship’s radar.

“I gotta give it to you, Bucky,” Stark said as he tried to manually maneuver the vessel away from the missile’s course. “That thing sure turns a lotta heads.” _That thing_ was Loki’s scepter and it certainly worked pretty nicely as bait. “Little word of advice,” Tony called out, this time he seemed to be addressing all of them. “Buckle up,” he cried urgently.

Bucky barely had time to walk out of the cockpit and take the empty seat next to Roger, and then it felt like they were freefalling from the sky faster than a rollercoaster. Bucky hadn’t drawn the seat belt from the slots by his head fast enough and his body went up as the ship took a dive.

He was sure his head was about to hit the ceiling when a strong pair of hands pulled him down.

Down and straight onto Rogers’ lap.

“Hang on,” Roger’s urged. But really, he was the one doing the hang the way his arms were wrapped tightly around Bucky. The guy was even stronger than he had imagined.

“Stark, what the hell!” Bucky heard Sam’s voice from the other side of the ship. Luckily he had been the only one standing up, so at least he was sure the rest of them were seemingly safe for now.

“I’m trying to shake them off,” Tony shouted from the cockpit.

The way he put the sentence together caught Bucky’s attention. And he wasn’t the only one.

“What?” Rogers was basically speaking in his ear.

Bucky glanced up at him; they were clearly heading to the same conclusion. “Did he just say _them_?” Rogers visibly paled. “Stark,” Bucky urged, “how many are there?”

“Counting with the one that just showed up?” His voice came accompanied by another violent swerve, and Bucky was only glad they were no longer going down.

Tony never got to responding the question.

One of the missiles managed to hit their left wing. The side Bucky and Rogers were.

Bucky was thrown from Rogers’ grasp onto the right side. Wanda caught him before he crashed against her, T’challa and Romanoff.

“Guys,” Tony called out again, “I’ve got some bad news.”

“I think the bad news already hit us, Tony,” Natasha sneered back.

Now that he was back on his feet – well, crouching actually, but anyway – Bucky took the opportunity to inspect Rogers. He looked up only to find the guy’s head hanging low on his neck. The whiplash on the metal wall had probably knocked Steve down.

“Well, the good news is that there’s no oxygen in space,” Stark kept rambling. The ship wasn’t stable enough for Bucky to stand up and walk so he crawled his way to Rogers. “So no fire,” Tony went on. “The bad news is green.” Bucky stopped on his tracks, blood going cold inside his veins. No, not now. “Green and angry.”

Just as Tony spoke the Hulk torn apart the small passageway between the two compartments of the ship; heading angrily on their direction and promising to smash anything on his path.

Bucky jumped back into action, unstrapping Rogers’ limp body from the seat and dragging him down to the back rows. He covered Steve with his own body in an attempt to steady them both, and watch as the Hulk ripped from its hinges the exact same seat Bucky had just taken Rogers from.

“I’m sorry, guys. I can’t leave this thing on autopilot,” Stark shouted. “I can’t help.”

Wanda began to set up a force shield around the Hulk but right at the moment Stark had to bend the ship all the way to one side and she lost her concentration. For a moment Bucky worried she had also lost consciousness, like Steve, but she was back in the game a moment later.

Luckily Tony had also managed to shake the Big Guy off his feet and he crashed violently on the other side.

“Hey, Big Guy,” Barton called him. He was far away from Maximoff that he could offer a nice distraction while she cast another shield. That was clearly not his intention, Bucky soon found out. “There’s someone, a lotta someones, trying to knock us from the sky. You gonna let ‘em?”

The Hulk seemed to actually stop to consider. “Hulk smash alien,” he grumbled.

Barton nodded vigorously. He had a nasty gash just above his right eyebrow. Bucky half suspected he had a concussion.

Banner’s alter ego began to walk to the back of the ship. Bucky repositioned himself in a way that his body offered full cover to Rogers’. His breath quicken as he prepared to face some very uneven odds. He had a knife on his hand, even if as he knew it wouldn’t do much of anything.

Bucky did not take well to being cornered. The Hulk was about to discover that.

A moment later Bucky would realize the Hulk wasn’t heading for him. But before that Bucky invested against him before he had the chance to the same.

He tried to sweep Banner off his feet again and got a kick in the guts for his troubles. Bucky watched in paralyzing horror as the Hulk raised a huge green foot above him. He was about to be the next item on the Hulk’s smashing list. Bucky held his knife on the left hand, ready to slice the sole of his feet as it came down on him.

The Hulk’s foot never came, though. At least not on Bucky. One moment he was about to be stepped on and the next a familiar set of hands was hauling Bucky to the side. Once again he fell atop of Steve.

Adrenaline rushed his way through Bucky’s veins. He barely registered as the Hulk punched the button that pulled down the hatch on the back of the ship. He jumped out, right onto to a missile and bounced from there to the vessel that had sent it.

Bucky soon realized why he was seeing that so well. Steve and he were being sucked out of the ship.

With one hand holding onto Steve, Bucky used the left one to hold on to the ship. “We gotta close this thing,” he shouted.

“Hold tight,” Rogers screamed back. And then he began to swing to the side. Bucky almost lost his grip twice before he finally noticed what the hell Steve was doing.

With a final hard push, Steve finally managed to kick the button. Bucky didn’t allow himself to breathe until he saw the ramp starting to close.

He was about to let go of the wall when Tony’s voice came throw the speakers. “What the fuck are you doing? Open up, he’s gonna come back.”

“What?” Rogers asked. Bucky remembered then that whatever Steve had seen on the internet about Bruce was not even close to the real thing.

“Bruce will come back,” he explained.

Steve shook his head. “That’s not what I’m asking. How the hell are we opening that thing up without being dragged out?”

Bucky looked up. Thankfully they were all wearing the space suits, otherwise, they would all have passed out by now. Wanda seemed to be in an okay shape to help them. “Maximoff,” he called out. “Can you pull him back in and hold us at the same time?”

She hesitated, but Bucky didn’t push, she was still getting the hang on her powers. “I think so.”

As on cue, the ship went stable again. The next second the whole thing was vibrating with what must have been a knock on the outside.

A red translucent glow suddenly engulfed Steve and Bucky; it pulled them forward as the hatch began to open again. The Hulk himself pressed the button to close it, before falling to his knees as he started to shrink down.

Everything was quiet for several minutes afterward. Bucky realized belatedly the Big Guy had probably smashed whoever was after them into oblivion. Bucky couldn’t find it in himself to feel bad.

Bruce was curled on himself on the floor. “Dr. Banner,” T’challa was the first to break the silence. “Are you well?”

There seemed to be a collective hold of breath, and only after Banner stirred and gave a weak nod did they all exhaled heavily. Clint, T’challa, and Wanda unstrapped and went to help him, while Natasha headed to the cockpit to check on Stark.

Bucky felt boneless as adrenaline left him. His knees gave under him and he sat down heavily on a recently unoccupied seat. Rogers was on the floor by his side, knees drawn up to his chest as he rested against the wall. His eyes were closed, and remembering how Steve had been knocked out only a few moments ago, Bucky nudged him lightly with his foot.

“How you doin’, Rogers?” No response. Bucky brought a hand down on his shoulder and shook him with a little more force. “Steve!” He leaned forward to use his right hand to check for a pulse. Bucky breathed out easier when he found a strong one.

Steve finally opened his eyes after another second, he blinked and looked at Bucky the same way he had when Bucky went to wake him up the day before. This time Bucky didn’t shy away from the tentative smile.

“We’ve made it,” Steve breathed out.

Bucky nodded dumbly. “Yeah,” he agreed.

And then just like the other day, it seemed to be impossible for either of them to look away. Bucky wasn’t sure what came over him then. He leaned forward slowly, he kept going and Rogers didn’t do anything to stop him. On the contrary, the closer he got the more Bucky could notice how wide Steve’s pupils were.

Bucky drew the hand he used to check on Steve’s pulse to the back of his neck, pulling Steve to meet him halfway. Rogers went willingly. Bucky closed his eyes.

And opened them again the moment their helmets crashed against each other.

Rogers was pulling from Bucky’s hold the next second. He used the wall to help propping himself up. “I –” Bucky didn’t understand the sudden change. Steve seemed startled of his own actions. He gaped at Bucky for a few seconds before finding his words. He looked pained as he spoke, and Bucky wasn’t       quite sure it all had to do with him knocking his head. “I can’t,” Steve finally said. “I’m sorry, I can’t,” he repeated.

Despite barely knowing him the rejection hurt Bucky more than he was ready to admit. “Why?” He asked against his better judgment. He didn’t know the first thing about Rogers. In fact, all he knew was that Rogers had lied to him and was using the name of the one _Steve_ Bucky missed the most. Getting involved with Rogers was the mother of bad ideas and yet –

 “I’m married,” Steve finally confessed.

In all honesty, Bucky had not seen _that_ coming.


	4. Chapter 4

Steve could have punched himself in the face out of pure frustration.

He could have kissed Bucky. Bucky wanted to. Only he didn’t know who Steve was. Steve had the advantage of having all of his memories of them. Their relationship was unbalanced, and it wouldn’t be fair.

Instead he turned his attention into helping the others. Clint had a nasty cut on his forehead. Normally, Bruce would be the one putting them back together, even though he _wasn’t that kind of doctor, guys_ , but since he seemed to still be quite shaken they gave him a blanket and some space to get himself in order.

T’challa ended up on the stitching duty, after Tony reassured them it would be safe to take off the helmets. He was reluctant to leave the ship on auto pilot and refused to leave the cockpit, but after checking up on him, Nat told them he had only some minor bruises from his head rattling inside the Iron Man helmet.

Sam, Clint and Steve tried unsuccessfully to put the seats the Hulk had dislocated back on their places. It was a lost battle.

“Hope Thor’s got insurance,” Clint said when they finally gave up trying.

“What? That’s also a thing in Asgard?” Sam asked.

Barton shrugged. “I don’t know, man. Maybe? Nobody’s too cool for insurance, let me tell you –”

Steve tuned them out as his eyes drew to Bucky of their own accord. He was sitting on the other side, having a quiet conversation with Wanda. If Steve forced a little he could pick up what they were saying, but he felt wrong for even thinking about it. He should give Bucky his space, and besides, it seemed like Bucky was actually helping Wanda. Steve remembered she looking a bit pale after everything, it looked as if she were better now. More than anything Steve wished he could tell her she did great, but he didn’t want to intrude on her moment with Bucky. Perhaps on this new reality Bucky was the one she went for – or who went for her – when she needed to talk.

“See something you like?” Natasha asked. Steve hadn’t even heard her approaching, he looked around and realized Sam and Clint had also moved away from him.

“Just checking to see if everyone’s alright,” he responded.

Natasha arched an eyebrow that told him she could see right through his bullshit. “That’s mighty nice of you.”

Steve shrugged, playing along. “I’m a nice guy.”

“Are you now?” She smirked. She sighed, then, the sarcasm leaving her face. “If you like him, you should say something,” he said casually, “He’s single. And our chances don’t look so great, so –”

Steve’s eyebrows went up to his hairline. “You trust me that much?” _Amazing_ , was what he really wanted to say, even when she didn’t know him, Nat was still trying to find him a date.

“Oh, not at all,” she confessed. Steve wasn’t surprised. “But James is the best judge of character I know. If he didn’t kill you on the spot there’s a chance you might not be so bad.”

Steve offered her a strained smile. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“You’re welcome.”

She walked away before he could come up with anything else, and Steve felt as if he were walking around in circles. He took a shuddering breath. He had to find those Stones before he lost his goddamn mind.

-

Tony was pretty sure the last hour had just been filled up by his subconscious to be used as a whole new repertoire of nightmares for the nights to come. That was, of course, if they made out of this alive. On the bright side they were all still up and running. On the down side, they could all be dead tomorrow.

Tony worked on his breathing exercises and used all the strength he had to try and keep the panic attack lurking just around the corner of his mind at bay. He was succeeding so far – better now that Romanoff had left him alone again – and that was part of the reason he chose to stay where he was. The last thing he needed was for the group to watch as he had a breakdown, and this way he could also be prepared if someone else decided to take a shot at them. Literally. Again.

He glanced at the monitor transmitting the live feed from the camera on the cabin. Everyone seemed somewhat fine, though he would have to check on Banner later. Romanoff was chatting with their new friend as they both stared at Barnes. Tony had noticed too, the way that Rogers guy and Bucky acted around each other.

It made Tony worry, even if he would never admit it. Barnes was a tough cookie. The toughest cookie. But he was also someone who had been victim of some terrible abuse and manipulation for decades. Tony remembered fighting with him because of his parents, and he also remembered all those long nights trying to break through Bucky’s programming.

What he _didn’t_ remember was Barnes mentioning anyone he might have been interested in. Ever. Tony had personally covered with him the fact that liking guys was okay, so that wasn’t the issue here.

If Rogers proved to be the good guy he seemed to be, then Tony will be happy for the two of them. Otherwise, Rogers would have a lot to answer.

Pepper would be better to handle a situation like this. She would see right through Rogers. Tony wished he could talk to her, but if he were really honest with himself it had less to do with Bucky’s love life than with his own. However, since he couldn’t do anything about it he limited himself to hoping he would see her again after this, that there would be an _after_.

He could already see Saturn’s rings. They would be reaching the Titan Moon in a few minutes.

This was it.

-

Thor joined them the moment they landed, literally the moment they landed. Sam all but jumped out of his seat when the huge, read cloaked guy appeared in front of him.

“Friends,” he said, smiling happily as if they weren’t about to face their deaths here, and then gave his hammer a swing for good measure. “Let’s do battle.”

Sam wished he could be _that_ optimist about it.

As they finished gearing up he couldn’t help but to feel out of his depth. Neither the wings nor the shield were of much use out here. He could still fight, though, and he would. Sam might not be able to turn twice his size and green, or lift up magical hammers, but he would fight with what he had.

Once they were ready, Sam call out the group for one last talk before leaving. “Alright, listen up,” he said, and a moment later the floor was his. “We all know what we gotta do, so I won’t waste time with that. Just remember, doesn’t matter how ugly the odds are, we’ve faced worse. If not,” he shrugged,” we will. The thing is, this is a chapter, not our whole history.” Sam made sure to give a reassuring nod to every single one of them, each they all responded in kind; even Bucky’s friend, who seemed overly touched by Sam’s words. “Let’s do this.”

Stark held Loki’s Scepter as they marched to Thanos’ doorstep again. Thor and Rogers flanked the rest of the team, while Bucky stayed a few steps behind to cover for them with some sort of alien machinegun he had found on Fury’s closet. All their efforts seemed unnecessary, though. The whole place looked deserted.

Last time they had been there the fortress was lacking in terms of security, yes, but this time it appeared that all rats had left the ship. Sam was beginning to doubt they would have any luck finding Thanos there this time around when the main gate opened on its own accord once they were a few feet away.

It was Sam’s first time actually seeing him, so he would totally be excused for being a little bit struck with surprise. Thanos was huge and even purpler than Vision had been.

“I was wondering when would come visit,” he said as he approached, pacing like a feline stalking prey. Sam was proud of the group as a whole for holding their ground. Thanos raised his right hand. The gauntlet shone with the glow of the Infinity Stones. “I assume you’re here for this.”

“Yeah,” Tony agreed, bouncing the staff on his hand. “Wanna trade?”

Thanos just smirked in response. Sam could actually feel as the group tensed up around him. “Your broken toy,” Thanos tsked, “I don’t think so.” With a wave of his hand the scepter disintegrated through Tony’s fingers.

And okay, the staff had just been bait, and it served its purposed, they wouldn’t need it anymore. It didn’t explain why the air was suddenly thinner, even if the display on his helmet said oxygen was on regular levels.

“I could destroy you all in one go, but what would be the fun of that?”

“Avengers,” Sam spoke under his breath, meaning to communicate through the comms, but he didn’t go unnoticed.

“Captain Wilson, would you also like to trade something? Perhaps the lives of your new friends for… an old one.” Thanos spread his arms, and to Sam’s horror the faces around him distorted themselves until they all looked like Riley.

Sam shook his head but the vision remained. “No,” he shouted, propelling the shield up against his arm he ran head first to Thanos direction – and never met his target.

“Very well, then,” Thanos shrugged. His right hand swatted Sam to the side as if he were a bug.

The back of Sam’s head hit something and everything went black.

-

They had to watch powerlessly as Sam connected with the wall of the fortress and fell unconscious to the ground.

From the moment Thanos zeroed in on Sam he also casted something on the rest of them. Tony couldn’t move and he suspected the others were on the same state of paralyzes as he was. They were helpless as Sam glanced at them with widened eyes right before charging against Thanos. Whatever he saw seemed to shake him enough to make him completely forgo any planning.

Thanos’ attention soon turned back to them. “Now, what do I do with the rest of you?” Tony watched as he flexed his right hand and suddenly they could all move again. It was clear the gauntlet with the Stones was the source of his powers, so if they could just take that off…

The group fell back in position, following on the plan they had drawn up, except they didn’t count with the advantage of the close space they’d been hoping for. One way or the other, it was clear they wouldn’t make it inside. So much for Rogers’ knowledge.

They had to try and circle Thanos. Tony hoped he could convey the message as he stepped to the side, toward Rogers. Romanoff filled up the space he left and Barton flanked her other side with T’challa and, at last, Thor.

Thanos straight up laughed as they slowly approached him. “Guess there’s not much point in being this powerful,” he said, gazing at the Gems. “If you can’t prove it.”

“Ready?” Tony asked. He was clearly not talking to Mister Soliloquy, and Tony was glad when Thanos didn’t answer.

Thor’s hammer was the first thing to hit the tyrant. It didn’t do much of anything but it served as a good distraction for Natasha to slide down under his legs, leaving widow bits on her wake. Unfortunately the electricity was also a missed shot but at least she made it to his other side.

It was Tony’s time to shine.

Shooting at Thanos’ eye level with both repulsors Tony was able to circle him, flying above Thanos’ head until he was on the other side hovering just above Romanoff.

Turning around, Thanos smiled at him. “Is that all?”

“Uh, nope,” Tony replied. Too bad Thanos couldn’t see his face, he’d wink otherwise. “We also have a Hulk.”

It was the Big Guy’s cue to wreak havoc. He had torn his way out of yet another of Bruce’s space suits – good thing they brought spares – roaring as he did so, and then smashed both his closed fists down hard on the ground.  A deep crack appeared before him – causing Barnes and Maximoff to have to jump away from it – and ran toward Thanos, only to stop at his feet.

The Hulk – clearly not happy with that result – charged against Thanos like an enraged bull. The rest of them didn’t wait around. Wanda lifted Bucky up in the air so that he would have a clear shot, while Clint ran to check on Sam and T’challa joined Romanoff on the ground behind Thanos.

Tony fired away alongside Barnes. The Hulk pounded his fists against Thanos’ chest. Amidst the chaos Tony heard through the comms as Rogers called to Barton.

“Hey, Clint, mind tossing the shield for a moment, just ‘til Sam’s back up?” It was weird that he spoke to them as if they had all being friend forever, but that paled in comparison of what he was asking for. Rogers wanted to wield the shield. A quick glace to where Sam was still lying out for the world, told Tony he wouldn’t be using it for the time being, but still. Could Rogers even do it?

Well, the shield was no Mjölnir, so yeah, he could probably do it. 

Barton seemed to be in the same moral dilemma. He glanced at them, but Tony was the only one paying attention so he nodded. They could explain it to Sam later. Desperate times and all that.

With a shrug, Barton took the shield from Sam’s limp arm and tossed it to Rogers’ direction. To Tony’s absolute surprise, he caught it as if he been practicing that particular move his whole life. And they were in space!

Shield in hand Rogers joined the rest of them on the mass attack against Thanos. For some time it really felt like they had the upper hand. None of them had gotten even close to the gauntlet but they did manage to land in some blows. Thanos didn’t waver, though, and after some moments it was clear he was just biding his time. He was _letting_ them hit him.

Soon enough, he grew tired of it.

One minute they were all on him, the next, Thanos actually grew bigger and they were all tossed aside much like Sam had been.

Tony was able to fly out of his range by a mere second, but the rest of them hit either the ground or – in Natasha and T’challa’s case – the fortress wall. They were out of the game.

But Tony was still playing, he flew around Thanos like a particularly annoying fly on fresh fruit. Maximoff was still up as well and she used her hocus pocus against Thanos as well. Rogers was also still conscious, Tony could hear him groaning through the comms as he pushed himself up.

When one of Wanda’s beams hit Thanos square on the face he actually stopped to stare at her. And well, while Thanos didn’t really have eyebrows, Tony sworn his face did the equivalent of lifting one. “You’re quite powerful, yourself.” He extended a hand at her, not the right one. “Care to join me?”

“I’ll pass,” Wanda hissed back. Her voice sounded strained and it was clear she was reaching her limits there.

Thanos, went on with his super villain power: talking. “Are you sure? Perhaps I could offer you something of your interest, say,” he cocked his head, “a brother?”

“Maximoff,” Tony warned her. He wasn’t exactly sure _what_ he was warning her about but he did it anyway.

She ignored him. “Don’t you dare talk about him,” she snarled; her accent heavy with emotion.

“Really,” the guy just went on and on. Now Tony just wanted it all to be over so that he would _shut up_. “I could bring him back to you just as easily as I could take you to him. Perhaps something else, then.” He raised his right hand up to his chest, his fist drawn and the back turned to her so that she was facing the Stones. With his other hand he tapped into the yellow one. The one he toke from Vision. “I’ve heard you grew quite attached.”

Wanda lost control of her powers.

It wasn’t really what Thanos was saying, Tony watched from the corner of his eyes as she breathed in and out and the red beams increased size as he spoke. She hadn’t really been listening to him rant, she was gathering from deep inside herself, concentrating all she had into two big glowing balls of energy.

It would probably have worked, maybe, if she had had time focusing all on Thanos’ direction. But Wanda was tired, and Tony watched helplessly as it all escaped from her control. Both beams missed Thanos, Tony saw that much. One of them reached the fortress and blew away half of it. The other went in his direction and Tony didn’t see anything else.

-

Tony fell from the sky just as Wanda passed out from exhaustion.

Steve was the only one left still conscious. He didn’t dare to think he might be the only one alive.

Bucky had also fallen from up high when Thanos went bigger and Wanda lost her hold on him. T’challa, Nat, even the Hulk and Thor, they were all out. Clint’s body was covering Sam’s, and Steve just didn’t want to think. He couldn’t think about any of that now. He had to find a way to get them out of here.

“And then there was only one.”

Steve realized belatedly Thanos hadn’t moved this whole time. He had shrunk back down to avoid Wanda’s blaze, but he was still on the exact same place.

“Not yet,” Steve countered, as he slowly made his way towards Thanos. The left side of his body was numb from where he’s fallen hard on the rocky ground. He studied the gauntlet. Those things erased Steve from Bucky’s mind. Thanos caught him watching. “What have you done to me?”

“I killed you to the whole world,” Thanos said simply. “Well, technically your soul is trapped in here, but don’t worry, it’s only temporary. Everything will go back to normal. Once you’re really dead.” Steve glanced at his fallen friends. They looked dead. Steve couldn’t afford to think like that though. And as it turned out, he didn’t have to. “Don’t worry, they’ll be fine,” Thanos reassured him. “You’re the only casualty here, Commander. I need them to spread the word around about me.” He raised a hand. “And, you can stop there.”

Steve did, but not because he felt his muscles seizing. He realized the first time it happened, Thanos’ paralyzing thing didn’t work on him. He kept the pretense though, because he still didn’t understand what was happening. Now Steve was staring to put the pieces together. “So what happens when I’m gone?” He asked as he watched Thanos’ right hand closely. He didn’t bother pretending he wasn’t, since for all intents and purposes Steve was stuck where he stood.

“Well, they remember you and mourn your lost.” He smiled. “I told you, all goes back to normal.” It was so small Steve would have missed had he blinked out of time, but since he was keeping close attention he saw it. Thanos’ hand was shaking slightly. The ground had sunk substantially under his feet.

The Stones gave him power but they were also draining him.

Thanos continued. “And then they tell the rest of the world, nothing in this universe or any other can harm me. Nothing exists that could kill me.” Steve’s own smile dropped Thanos’ from his face. “Why are you smiling? Do you enjoy death so much?”

“You forget something,” Steve explained simply.

“And what is that?”

“I don’t exist,” Steve announced. And in a swift motion he closed the small gap between them fast enough to pull the gauntlet from Thanos’s arms. Tossing it up, Steve threw it away from them by hitting it with the shield. It disappeared passed the ruins of the fortress.

For a second they were both locked in a staring matching. Steve watched as rage gave way to surprise on Thanos’ face. Even without the power of the Stones he was still almost twice Steve’s size. Steve was about to strike first when a voice came from behind him.

“Rogers,” it was Bucky, but there was not time for Steve to breathe out in relief, before Buck continued urgently, “duck!”

Steve acted on instinct and crouched out of the way a second before the laser beam hit Thanos right between the eyes. The tyrant toppled down almost in slow motion. Steve rolled out of the way just in time to avoid being trapped under him.

When he stood up again Steve saw the enormous hole on the back of Thanos head.

“You alright?” Bucky asked. Steve looked up from the dead body to see Bucky limping his way to him.

“Are _you_?” Steve shot back, inspecting closely to see if he could spot any life threatening wound.

“Yeah, I’ll live,” Bucky dismissed his concern. His gaze went from Steve to Thanos and then back to Steve. “How the hell did you pull that one, Rogers?”

Steve sighed. He had really hoped once Thanos was gone everything would go back to normal. Apparently he would have to do that himself. “I – I gotta find the Stones,” he said instead of answering.

Bucky frowned at him, suspicious written all over his face. “What for?”

“Look, I could explain,” Steve argued, “but you wouldn’t believe me.”

“Guy defeats Thanos all by his lonesome and then wants to run after the Infinity Stones for _reasons_ ,” Sam’s voice came from behind them. He was supporting half of Clint’s weight. A quick look around showed Steve that the rest of team was also getting up, and Steve exhaled a relieved sigh.

“Well, technically,” Bucky interjected. “ _I_ defeated him.”

Before a pointless discussion could arise Steve spoke. “I need them,” he said without offering any other explanation.

“Why?” Tony asked, part of his armor was burnt, but Steve would bet he was fine inside. “ They’re better left alone, that’s the whole point of us being here! So that not one person has them.”

Steve saw his window of opportunity closing with every second he lost arguing this. They would never believe him. Not when they didn’t know him. He was on his own. “I need to find the Stones. They’re the only way I can make things go back to how they were. I know you don’t believe me, but we are friends,” he tried for one last time.

None of them said anything for a long time. Steve was sure at least half of them was debating how to best take him down. Clint was the one to break the silence. He untangled himself from Sam and walked unsteadily toward Steve.

“Whatever. Let’s go.”

Steve’s shock must have been clear on his face for Clint stopped on his track to look at him. He stepped right onto Steve’s personal space and placed a hand on his chest. It wasn’t threatening, but it wasn’t friendly either. “If you’re telling the truth them I’m helping a friend,” he pressed his hand harder on Steve’s chest. “If you’re lying I kill you.”

Clint could barely hold himself upright but Steve wasn’t about to look a gifted horse on the mouth. Nobody object, although Natasha clearly wanted to. And so Steve accepted Clint’s offer.

“Let’s go.”

-

They all observed silently as Rogers disappeared inside what was left of the fortress. Bucky waited for a few heartbeats.

“So,” Stark started, “we’re just gonna—”

Bucky didn’t wait around for whatever he was about to say. He followed Steve.

When he woke up on the ground, Bucky was sure he was dead. Then Rogers was standing tall against Thanos and the gauntlet was gone. Bucky was yet to get the truth of what happened, but what he felt on the moment was similar to what he felt when – without meaning to – the Avengers freed him from HYDRA when they took down the Helicarriers.

Bucky wasn’t ready to analyze that just yet.

So instead he focused on watching Barton and Rogers from a safe distance. They didn’t seem to have any actual plan to where they were going, they were literally just walking around turning rubble.

Neither of them spoke and every once and again Clint had to stop to take a breath. They went on for what felt like an hour until a small whimper stopped them on their tracks.

“D’ya hear that?” Clint asked.

Rogers shushed him.

They heard it again. This time Steve was able to locate the sound and Bucky readied his weapon. It didn’t have a scope but he could still hit a target from this distance.

Steve, as it seemed, cared very little for his own safety and approached the source of the small cries without a single care.

“Reckless,” Bucky complained under his breath. At least Rogers wasn’t blocking his line of sight.

Clint helped Steve remove the debris and the sound became cleared as they worked. It didn’t take long for them to find the source.

It was little girl.

She couldn’t be older than seven. She was small and trembling like a leaf, she was also blue. Barton and Rogers seemed to be at loss of how to proceed from there. They watched the girl as she also looked up at them through the long veil of her bone white hair. When her eyes settled on Steve they went wide.

The kid moved and Bucky put a finger on the trigger.

She launched her small frame at Steve’s legs before he could shoot though, which was a good thing too, because all she did was hug Steve around the waist. She started saying something to Rogers, but it took Bucky a while to get the words.

“You saved me, you saved me, you saved me.”

-

 “You saved me.”

It took some time for Steve to get anything else from the girl. Steve figured she meant from Thanos. They hadn’t seen any children the last time, so he suspected she hadn’t been here long.

“Do you want to keep looking?” Clint asked.

With some effort Steve managed to untangled the girl from around his legs for long enough that he could crouch in front of her. “No,” he answered Clint, “We should get her outta here.” And then he addressed the kid. “Are your parents around?” She shook her head. “Do you know where they are?” He got a blank stare as answer. “Okay, so, let’s try to find them, uh.” Again nothing. Steve tried a different approach. “What’s your name?”

“Kobik” she finally answered.

“Alright, Kobik. I’m Steve,” he pointed at Barton, “and this is Clint. Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Good, that’s good,” Steve reassured her. He stood up and she went after him, taking his hand in a firm grip. “You wanna come with me?”

She nodded vigorously. 

“Okay.” Steve picked her up so she wouldn’t trip over the rubble and they turn around to leave the fortress.

The rest of the team was waiting for them inside the ship.

“Another stray?” Tony asked.

They ignored him as Clint explained. “Perhaps Fury could help,” he suggested. “He was there for some time.”

“He’s still recovering in Asgard. If you would like,” Thor smiled down at Kobik, “I could take the little one with me.” He made a motion toward her and she hid herself behind Steve’s legs.

The subject dropped there. Kobik wouldn’t let anyone near her for the remaining of the journey back to the lunar station. She was asleep when they got there and that was the only reason Steve could leave her with Wanda and Clint.

He had just changed into a pair of sweats and a t-shirt he borrowed when Bucky found him.

“Thanks again,” Steve said as he entered, “for the clothes and for saving me back there.”

“Yeah, they look good on you,” Bucky smirked. Steve felt his cheeks flush. “No luck with the Stones?”

Steve sighed. “Yeah, no. Guess there’s no chance of you just _believing_ me, is there?” He tried, not really expecting any kind of answer.

Nevertheless, he got one. A frustrated huff followed by, “We’ve been through this before, the only Steve Rogers I know—”

Bucky might not remember, but Steve was about to remind him how stubborn he could be. “I _am_ the only Steve Rogers you know,” Steve interrupted, throwing caution to the wind at long last. This was it. He didn’t have much time left, so he would have to come clean with Bucky, who was now glaring at him with pure skepticism.

"Look, Steve was a scrawny kid.” He gestured up and down at Steve’s body. “You're very far from that."

“But I’m telling you, it's me!” Steve insisted.

Bucky – who for all his stances was just as stubborn as Steve – argued back with the most ridiculous question, “And how come you're – big and alive? I was there when Steve was lowered six feet under.” He looked hurt and Steve wanted nothing more than wipe that from his face. He wanted to hug Bucky, but he couldn’t. Not yet.

“How come _you_ are all big and alive?” Steve retorted instead. Then he sighed. This wasn’t going anywhere; he had to tell the truth. “Remember when I – when we almost –” He left the rest unsaid as he saw on Bucky’s eyes that he understood, he remembered. “It’s you, Buck,” Steve finally confessed, but the weight of the secret dragging him down all this time was still hanging on his shoulders. It wouldn’t go away, not until Bucky remembered him. “ _You’re_ my husband!”

Then Steve thought about something Bucky would recognize. He turned his neck so that the back of his head was on display. He pulled back his left ear for Bucky to see better the small scar he had there. Steve gave it a few seconds before looking back at him.

Bucky opened and closed his mouth several times, Steve could just see how his eyes were welling up and then Bucky was hitting both sides of his head with closed fists hard enough for Steve to cringe in sympathy.

Steve approached him slowly and took hold of his arms, pulling them down. Bucky didn’t fight him and Steve kept his hold even after he had stopped. “But, I don’t remember you,” Bucky said in anguish. “Why can’t I remember you?”

Steve rested his forehead on his. “I don’t know. I don’t know how to revert this. I couldn’t find the Stones, I’m sorry,” he shook his head, “I’m so sorry, Bucky.” Steve blinked and his own tears mixed up with Bucky’s.

He had to tell him. They couldn’t stay there forever, Steve had to be honest. “I’m gonna die, Buck.”

Bucky took a step away, probably to look at Steve’s face better and Steve let him go, his hands falling uselessly back to his sides. “What?”

“Thanos, rewrote our history,” Steve explained. “He killed me in the past, that’s why nobody knows me, I died before I became like this.” He spread his arms to convey what he meant to say.

“I – I don’t understand.”

“I wasn’t like this, you remember that.” Bucky nodded, and Steve went on to answer his previous question. “Right, so I changed, in 43’, my body – it became like this. But that’s not the problem. The thing is, Thanos made me die a long time ago and the only reason I haven’t disappeared yet is cos I’m not on Earth. The minute we get back I’ll – I’ll be gone.”

“Steve.” Bucky looked at him with wide eyes.

“I was hoping I could find the Stones. But all we found was the girl.” They wouldn’t let him go back by himself, Steve was sure. And since the team was reading to go back to Earth, Steve was sure none of they would volunteer to tag along this time. Well, maybe…

Steve looked expectantly at Bucky but all he got was a defeated sigh before Bucky inhaled deeply. “Give me – give me some time,” he asked, visibly overwhelmed.

“Of course, Buck,” Steve agreed, blinking rapidly to keep himself from completely breaking down.

And with a final nod at him Bucky walked out of the room.

-

Bucky woke up to a realization: he didn’t care. He didn’t care he didn’t remember Steve, Bucky believed him now. More importantly, he believed his own feelings. They could do this, _he_ could do this. Steve said they were married. Bucky was already in love with him, so what the hell?

With the new resolution in mind he walked up to find a folded piece of paper on the place where Steve was supposed to be sleeping. Dread crept up to him as he unfold it, he didn’t know what Steve’s handwriting looked like, but Bucky was sure that was it. It was short and direct, although he could practically _feel_ Steve’s emotions as he read it.

_Buck,_

_I need you to remember me. I need you to remember us. I’ve lost you one too many times before, I can’t do it again. So I’m renewing my vows to you, we’ll be together ‘til the end, Bucky._

_Steve Barnes-Rogers_

“Bucky,” the small voice called, and Bucky turned around to see Kobik standing unsure in the doorway. She had warmed up to them last night, no longer clinging only to Steve, she seemed to like him as well. “Why are you sad?”

Bucky sniffed and rubbed the back of his hands on his eyes before grinning openly at her. “Hey, c’mere.” She walked in and he went down to his knees so they were on the same eye level. “Could you do me a favor, kiddo?”  They had found out she had some sort of power, they weren’t quite sure what it was, but it was probably the reason Thanos had kidnapped her. She didn’t say much about it. Bucky didn’t want to exploit her, but he had to find Steve before he did something stupid. She nodded and he proceeded, “Can you help me with Steve?”

Kobik’s face split up on a huge smile. “Yes!” she practically shouted in excitement. She really liked Steve. “You want him back?” Bucky hummed in affirmation. “And everybody wants him back, too?” Bucky couldn’t exactly speak in behalf of the whole team, but he was sure they would all miss Rogers if he was gone for good. They all seemed to like him so he confirmed.

“Yeah, we all want him back.”

Kobik put both her small blue hands on the sides of Bucky’s head. He wasn’t really afraid of her, but the pressure on his skull brought back some very unpleasant memories. He gritted his teeth and tried to steady his breathing and keep his ground.

The pressure increased suddenly and when Bucky closed his eyes he began to see…

He saw himself and Steve driving the Cyclone. He watched as he said goodbye to Steve on the fair so that he could play pretend with the girls. A second later Steve was huge and he was rescuing Bucky from the factory. Then Steve was fighting him on a bridge. One more flash and Steve was asking if he really wanted to go back into cryo. Flash. Steve was confessing to the entire world he loved Bucky. Flash. They were getting married in Wakanda. Flash. Steve finally took him out on that dance. Flash. They had to say goodbye again.

Bucky opened his eyes when Kobik’s fingers left his head. He braced himself up on his hand and knees as he gasped.

“Bucky? What’s wrong?”

He didn’t get to answer her question because on the next moment the rest of the group came rushing in from the sleeping quarters. Bucky looked up at them, they all had matching horrifying expressions on their faces.

“Did you –” Sam began. Bucky was nodding before he finished and he seemed to have lost the rest of what he was about to say.

“Kobik,” Bucky turned back to the girl, she looked scared. “You didn’t do anything wrong, okay?” Her eyes were huge but she seemed to understand. “But I really need you to tell me where Steve is. Now.”

\-   

It hadn’t been easy, sneaking out from a room full of Avengers and a kid who could find missing objects or people. They had all been delighted to see Kobik warming up to them, and when Clint couldn’t find his hearing aid she was the first to volunteer to look for them. Steve had thought she was looking at it like some sort of hide and seek game, but then Kobik put her hands on Clint’s head and searched for the aid _there_.

The debate in whether she was like Wanda or something else entirely went on until the last of them had fallen asleep.

 Bucky made sure to not be around Steve the whole time, and it hurt more than Steve would have expected, especially after he had told Bucky everything.

So he waited until the group was out of commission along with Kobik to leave. He ran to the Asgardian ship he had hidden and pushed the coordinates to Thano’s fortress.

This time Steve would only leave once he found a way to turn things back to how they were.

Or he would die trying.

-

After Thanos was gone his staff reappeared to work on the fortress and, judging by the number of unconscious bodies around, Steve had definitely been here. Bucky just hoped he wasn’t too late.

One of the bodies stirred awake and Bucky grabbed the lackey by the neck, he used the other hand to draw a small gun he had found on Fury’s things. If he had kept the thing on the moon, Bucky would bet it could do some damage around here.

“Where’s the Commander?” Bucky leveled his gun to the red man’s eye level. He was met with complete silence. “I’m gonna ask you one more time, pal,” he tried again, making a show of pulling the safety off. “Where the hell is my husband?”

“In-inside,” The man stammered out. Bucky dropped him unceremoniously and went to find Steve. It was easy to spot him, he was the only person still standing up.

“Steven Grant Barnes-Rogers, you son of a bitch!”

Steve’s snapped his neck on Bucky’s direction. “Buck,” he breathed out. “You –”

“Take off your damn helmet, Rogers,” Bucky demanded as he pulled his own out of his head.

“What the hell, Buck?”  Steve’ knitted his brow.

“We’re not gonna die, punk. We can hold it for at least ten minutes, I’m sure,” Bucky explained.

Steve still looked like he had no idea what was happening, nonetheless, he complied. And as soon as he did Bucky grabbed him by the back of his neck and smashed their mouths together with a loud noise. He swallowed down Steve’s surprised gasp.

It took about half a second for Steve to get with the program, and then he finally recognized the kiss for what it was. The remaining tension from the past – god only knew how many – days finally slipping from his muscles. Bucky felt as Steve’s body molded perfectly against him when Steve relaxed into his touch.

They couldn’t take the lack of air for much longer but Bucky made the most of it, relearning Steve’s taste on the few seconds he had to explore Steve’s mouth with his tongue. Steve did pretty much the same, but his hands also used the time to massage Bucky’s skull. He was weak-kneed and unable to hold back the whimper when Steve pulled lightly at his hair.

Unfortunately the kissing drew away their oxygen supply faster than it would have, if they hadn’t been pushing, and much too soon the two of them had to put the helmets back on, both panting as they did.

Bucky lightly punched Steve’s shoulder once he was done. “I know we’re married,” he announced. Steve rolled his eyes. “Just in case it wasn’t clear. Why didn’t you tell me before?”

Steve’s shoulder slumped. “You would’ve believed me.” The worse part was that he was right, Bucky wouldn’t have, he _didn’t_. “But how?”

“Kobik,” Bucky explained. “She restored our memories.”

Steve shook his head. “No, that’s not what she did. She restored my _life_ , Buck. I was really dead. The soul stone was the only thing trapping me here.”

“Jesus!” Bucky gasped. He couldn’t wrap his mind around it. He almost lost Steve for good. And then he realized something. “Wait a minute, so Kobik has the Stones?”

-

“No,” Kobik explained after Bucky and Steve returned to the lunar station. There was an awkward hugging session where they all apologized to Steve for not believing in him, which Steve didn’t quite know how to respond to so he just acknowledged their apologies and let the subject drop. Then they asked Kobik about the Stones. “I don’t have them. They don’t exist anymore.”

“What do you mean, kiddo?”

“I’m the Stones,” she said.

Natasha approached her. “Hey, you don’t have to lie. We’re not angry.”

Kobik shook her head. “I’m not lying! I’m the Stones. They’re part of me!” She ran to Steve and he picked her up. Kobik buried her face on the crock of his neck and bawled against Steve’s collar bone. “I don’t want to be alone any-more,” she hiccupped. “Take me with –you.”

Steve rubbed circles on her back.

“Oh, god! She’s not lying,” Bruce said. “Remember the story? The Infinity Stones had once been one single being. The only being.”

Kobik raised her head. “I was alone,” she explained in a whisper. Steve could see the others – sans Bucky – were straining to hear. “There was no one else. I didn’t want to exist anymore. So I stopped.”

Steve held her tighter. “I’m not leaving you alone again,” he promised.

Bucky stepped closer to them. He wiped Kobik’s face with his right hand. “Neither am I.” He shared a look with Steve and, without saying anything they reached the same conclusion. “You’re coming with us,” Bucky announced.

“Wait a minute, guys,” Sam called. “You sure about this?”

Steve had never been more certain about something in his life, and a quick look at Bucky showed that he felt the same. Steve knew it was a big decision, Kobik held more power in her small frame than anyone else in the whole world. But she was also a kid wanting a family. Bucky and Steve could give her that.

“Yes, we are,” Bucky answered.

Kobik squealed on Steve’s embrace, throwing her arms up and hugging the both of them tightly.

When Steve looked back at the group they seemed to have already accepted their decision. Steve knew it would be complicated, but if the Avengers were on their side Bucky and he could make this work.

They spend the next hours finally preparing to leave the moon. It was time to head back to Earth.

The group was on their way to the Asgardian ship when Clint spoke up. “Uh, guys,” they stopped – Bucky, Kobik and Steve a few steps behind. “I think you have a problem.” He pointed at Kobik. She didn’t need to use a space suit and she didn’t have one anyway, so she was wearing something she had conjured on herself out of thin air.

Steve studied her, trying to see what Barton was talking about.

And then it hit him.

-

“Buck, she’s _blue,_ ” Steve pointed out the obvious. Bucky was about to call him on it when he suddenly understood.

She would be targeted, at the very least. At worse – and that was probably the case they should expect – the government and SHIELD would fight each other to see who could get their hands on her first. Kobik would be prodded and poked in a hidden lab, scared and away from them.

Bucky was more than aware she could protect herself if it came to something extreme, but she was just a child, and chances were she still didn’t understand the whole implication of what she was. Bucky had asked her to locate Steve and she rewrote their reality back to normal instead. They had to look out for her until she was old enough to understand, to learn.

For that, they would need her to mingle.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve noticed. But,” he crouched to Kobik’s eye level, “we can work on that, right?” He smiled at her, hoping he wasn’t about to sound like an asshole. “Sweetheart, if you’re gonna live with us you gotta pick a human, uh, color.”

“What color?” She simply asked.

“Uh,” Bucky hesitated for a second, he looked back at Steve, but the unhelpful ass only shrugged. So Bucky shrugged as well, turning his attention back to Kobik. “It really doesn’t matter. Just – look around and choose something you like.”

Bucky knew the rest of the team was watching them expectantly. Kobik passed her curious little eyes through all of them slowly until her gaze finally returned to Bucky. “Ok.”

“Ok? You chose one?” She nodded solemnly. “You know, it doesn’t actually have to be exactly like one of us here. It’s just that – not blue, or orange, or silver.”

“I know, silly,” She shot him down. “Close your eyes.” She put her hands on her hips and stumped her feet, frowning at them on a very close impression of Rogers. “Everybody!”

Bucky closed his eyes, assuming they all did the same. It was not even a minute later when she told them to open up again.

In front of them was no longer the blue kid with white her. On her place was a little back girl with long curly hair. She had on a flowered dress and pink shoes. She could be any kid on Earth. But she wasn’t, she was Steve and Bucky’s kid.

“You look beautiful, Kobik,” Steve said in awe, crouching next to Bucky to engulf her in a hug and pick her up.

“Now can I go with you?” Kobik asked hopefully.

Bucky stood back up. He put a wayward curl behind her ear. “If you want to.”

“Ah,” Steve drew their attention, he looked pensive and for a moment Bucky worried about him having second thoughts. “Just one thing though.” Bucky literally held his breath. “Which one do you prefer dog or cat?” Bucky was well aware Steve could see as he visibly relaxed. Bucky narrowed his eyes at him, Steve just smiled.

“Alright, happy family,” Stark called, breaking their moment before Kobik could answer. “We’ve gotta get moving. There’s a long way home.”

Bucky and Steve shared an entire conversation in just a look. This was it. They were really starting a family with a kid that had the power to wipe out the entire universe. And they didn’t even know if she liked cats.

“You know, I can read what you’re thinking,” Kobik said. Then she pointed back and forth between them. “It’s creepy that you do that without talking.”

Steve blinked at her. “Can you tell what I’m thinking now?” Her eyes went huge and she all but jumped from his arms and started to run away from them, following the rest of the team as she giggled her way there. Bucky laughed, knowing Steve he was definitely thinking about tickling the kid.

“Hey, we’re gonna have to talk to her about the whole mind reading thing,” Bucky reminded.

“Sure,” Steve agreed, “but that can wait.” He smiled sweetly at Bucky, and then nudged his shoulder. “Let’s get home first.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

Hey, remember that time Steve and Bucky adopted the embodiment of the Infinity Stones? Here's **[the soundtrack](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1tz85Mdn3rIobo1TJDi8brkq_Qlr8oo2)** for that:

 

**Better Love - Hozier**

I once kneeled in shaking thrill

I chase the memory of it still, of every chill

Chided by that silence of a hush sublime

Blind to the purpose of the brute divine

But you were mine

Staring in the blackness at some distant star

The thrill of knowing how alone we are, unknown we are

 

**Moondust –Jaymes Young**

I'm building this house, on the moon

Like a lost, astronaut

Lookin' at you, like a star

From a place, the world forgot

And there's nothing, that I can do

Except bury my love for you

 

**No Man’s Land - Zack Hemsey**

I’ve stood among them like a ghost they fail to recognize  
  
Amidst the cattle and the wolves that roam the countryside  
  
Stood between the trenches where the sound of battle cried  
  
Where reason went to die along the ground where Hell and Earth collide

 

**Battle Cry – Imagine Dragons**

Stars are only visible in darkness  
  
Fear is ever-changing and evolving  
  
And I, I can poison the skies  
  
And I, I feel so alive

 

**Heroes – Zayde Wolf**

It's feeling like the suns hiding

But we're gonna keep moving

surviving

No we won't go quiet tonight

Stand up and shout louder

Oh no, no we won't be silent

 

**Breath of Life – Florence + The Machine**

I was looking for a breath of life

A little touch of heavenly light

But all the choirs in my head sang no

To get a dream of life again

A little of vision of the start and the end

But all the choirs in my head sang no

 

**Skyfall – Adele**

For this is the end

I’ve drowned and dreamt this moment

So overdue I owe them

Swept away, I’m stolen


End file.
